A Woman-Hater Part 63

She replied, gravely, "Only what must be. She is beginning to realize what has befallen her. Don't come here. You can do no good. I will run down to you whenever I dare. Give me a nurse to help, this first night."

He went down and sent into the village for a woman who bore a great name for nursing. Then he wandered about disconsolate.

The leaden hours pa.s.sed. He went to dress, and discovered Ina Klosking's blood upon his clothes. It shocked him first, and then it melted him: he felt an inexpressible tenderness at sight of it. The blood that had flowed in her veins seemed sacred to him. He folded that suit, and tied it up in a silk handkerchief, and locked it away.

In due course he sat down to dinner--we are all such creatures of habit.

There was everything as usual, except the familiar faces. There was the glittering plate on the polished sideboard, the pyramid of flowers surrounded with fruits. There were even chairs at the table, for the servants did not know he was to be quite alone. But he was. One delicate dish after another was brought him, and sent away untasted. Soon after dinner Rhoda Gale came down and told him her patient was in a precarious condition, and she feared fever and delirium. She begged him to send one servant up to the farm for certain medicaments she had there, and another to the chemist at Taddington. These were dispatched on swift horses, and both were back in half an hour.

By-and-by f.a.n.n.y Dover came down to him, with red eyes, and brought him Zoe's love. "But," said she, "don't ask her to come down. She is ashamed to look anybody in the face, poor girl."

"Why? what has _she_ done?"

"Oh, Harrington, she has made no secret of her affection; and now, at sight of that woman, he has abandoned her."

"Tell her I love her more than I ever did, and respect her more. Where is her pride?"

"Pride! she is full of it; and it will help her--by-and-by. But she has a bitter time to go through first. You don't know how she loves him."

"What! love him still, after what he has done?"

"Yes! She interprets it this way and that. She cannot bear to believe another woman has any real right to separate them."

"Separate them! The scoundrel knocked _her_ down for loving him still, and fled from them both. Was ever guilt more clear? If she doubts that he is a villain, tell her from me he is a forger, and has given me bills with false names on them. The bankers gave me notice to-day, and I was coming home to order him out of the house when this miserable business happened."

"A forger! is it possible?" said f.a.n.n.y. "But it is no use my telling her that sort of thing. If he had committed murder, and was true to her, she would cling to him. She never knew till now how she loved him, nor I neither. She put him in Coventry for telling a lie; but she was far more unhappy all the time than he was. There is nothing to do but to be kind to her, and let her hide her face. Don't hurry her."

"Not I. G.o.d help her! If she has a wish, it shall be gratified. I am powerless. She is young. Surely time will cure her of a villain, now he is detected."

f.a.n.n.y said she hoped so.

The truth is, Zoe had not opened her heart to f.a.n.n.y. She clung to her, and writhed in her arms; but she spoke little, and one broken sentence contradicted the other. But mental agony, like bodily, finds its vent, not in speech, the brain's great interpreter, but in inarticulate cries, and moans, and sighs, that prove us animals even in the throes of mind.

Zoe was in that cruel stage of suffering.

So pa.s.sed that miserable day.

CHAPTER XXI.

INA KLOSKING recovered her senses that evening, and asked Miss Gale where she was. Miss Gale told her she was in the house of a friend.

"What friend?"

"That," said Miss Gale, "I will tell you by-and-by. You are in good hands, and I am your physician."

"I have heard your voice before," said Ina, "but I know not where; and it is so dark! Why is it so dark?"

"Because too much light is not good for you. You have met with an accident."

"What accident, madam?"

"You fell and hurt your poor forehead. See, I have bandaged it, and now you must let me wet the bandage--to keep your brow cool."

"Thank you, madam," said Ina, in her own sweet but queenly way. "You are very good to me. I wish I could see your face more clearly. I know your voice." Then, after a silence, during which Miss Gale eyed her with anxiety, she said, like one groping her way to the truth, "I--fell--and--hurt--my forehead?--_Ah!"_

Then it was she uttered the cry that made Vizard quake at the door, and shook for a moment even Rhoda's nerves, though, as a rule, they were iron in a situation of this kind.

It had all come back to Ina Klosking.

After that piteous cry she never said a word. She did nothing but think, and put her hand to her head.

And soon after midnight she began to talk incoherently.

The physician could only proceed by physical means. She attacked the coming fever at once, with the remedies of the day, and also with an infusion of monk's-hood. That poison, promptly administered, did not deceive her. She obtained a slight perspiration, which was so much gained in the battle.

In the morning she got the patient shifted into another bed, and she slept a little after that. But soon she was awake, restless, and raving: still her character pervaded her delirium. No violence. Nothing any sore injured woman need be ashamed to have said: only it was all disconnected.

One moment she was speaking to the leader of the orchestra, at another to Mr. Ashmead, at another, with divine tenderness, to her still faithful Severne. And though not hurried, as usual in these cases, it was almost incessant and pitiable to hear, each observation was so wise and good; yet, all being disconnected, the hearer could not but feel that a n.o.ble mind lay before him, overthrown and broken into fragments like some Attic column.

In the middle of this the handle was softly turned, and Zoe Vizard came in, pale and somber.

Long before this she had said to f.a.n.n.y several times, "I ought to go and see her;" and f.a.n.n.y had said, "Of course you ought."

So now she came. She folded her arms and stood at the foot of the bed, and looked at her unhappy rival, unhappy as possible herself.

What contrary feelings fought in that young breast! Pity and hatred. She must hate the rival who had come between her and him she loved; she must pity the woman who lay there, pale, wounded, and little likely to recover.

And, with all this, a great desire to know whether this sufferer had any right to come and seize Edward Severne by the arm, and so draw down calamity on both the women who loved him.

She looked and listened, and Rhoda Gale thought it hard upon her patient.

But it was not in human nature the girl should do otherwise; so Rhoda said nothing.

What fell from Ina's lips was not of a kind to make Zoe more her friend.

Her mind seemed now like a bird tied by a long silken thread. It made large excursions, but constantly came back to her love. Sometimes that love was happy, sometimes unhappy. Often she said "Edward!" in the exquisite tone of a loving woman; and whenever she did, Zoe received it with a sort of shiver, as if a dagger, fine as a needle, had pa.s.sed through her whole body.

At last, after telling some tenor that he had sung F natural instead of F sharp, and praised somebody's rendering of a song in "Il Flauto Magico,"

and told Ashmead to make no more engagements for her at present, for she was going to Vizard Court, the poor soul paused a minute, and uttered a deep moan.

_"Struck down by the very hand that was vowed to protect me!"_ said she.

Then was silent again. Then began to cry, and sob, and wring her hands.

Zoe put her hand to her heart and moved feebly toward the door. However, she stopped a moment to say, "I am no use here. You would soon have me raving in the next bed. I will send f.a.n.n.y." Then she drew herself up.

"Miss Gale, everybody here is at your command. Pray spare nothing you can think of to save--_my brother's guest."_

There came out the bitter drop.

When she had said that, she stalked from the room like some red Indian bearing a mortal arrow in him, but too proud to show it.