Phyllis of Philistia Part 40

His heart. Sir Joseph was not surprised. He said he had told him a short time ago that he had not six months to live. He cannot have let his wife know. Well, well, perhaps it was for the best. His man came to me in a terrible state. How was it to be broken to her? I just managed to catch the last train. He must have been worth over a million. She will be one of the richest women in England. Even in America a woman with three-quarters of a million is reckoned moderately well off. Poor creature! Ah! the shorn lamb!--the wind is tempered. 'In the midst of life--' Dear Phyllis! you must not allow yourself to break down. Your sympathetic nature is hard to control, I know, but still--oh, my child!"

But Phyllis refused to be comforted. She lay sobbing on the pillow, and when her father put his arm about her and raised her, she put her head on his shoulder, crying:

"He is gone from me forever--he is gone from me forever! Oh, I am the cruelest woman on earth! It is not for her terrible blow that I am crying, it is because I have lost him--I see it--I have lost him!"

Her father became frightened. What in the world could she mean by talking about the man being gone from her? He had never heard of a woman's sympathy extending to such limits as caused her to feel a personal deprivation when death had taken another woman's husband.

"Oh, I am selfish--cruel--heartless!" sobbed Phyllis. "I thought of myself, not of her. He is hers; he will be given back to her as she prayed--she prayed so to me before you appeared at the door, papa. 'Give him back to me! Give him back to me!' that was her prayer."

"My dearest child, you must not talk that way," said the father. "Come, Phyllis, your strength has been overtaxed. You must go to bed and try to sleep."

She still moaned about her cruelty--her selfishness, until the doctor who had been sent for and had been with Ella in her room, appeared in order to let them know that Mrs. Linton had regained consciousness. The blow had, of course, been a terrible one: but she was young, and Nature would soon rea.s.sert herself, he declared, whatever he meant by that. He thought it strange, he said, that Mrs. Linton had not been aware of her husband's weakness. To him, the physician, the condition of the unfortunate gentleman had been apparent from the first moment he had seen him. He had expected to hear of his death any day. He concluded by advising Phyllis to go to bed and have as long a sleep as possible.

He would return in the morning and see if Mrs. Linton might travel to London.

Phyllis went to her room, and her father went to the one which had been prepared for him. For a minute or two he remained thoughtful. What could his daughter have meant by those self-accusations? After a short time, however, he smiled. The poor thing had been upset by the shocking news of the death of the husband of her dearest friend. She was sympathetic to quite a phenomenal degree. That sympathy which felt her friend's loss as though it were wholly her own was certainly not to be met with every day.

In the morning Phyllis showed traces of having spent a bad night. But she spoke rationally and not in the wild way in which she had spoken before retiring, and her father felt that there was no need for him to be uneasy in regard to her condition. He allowed her to go to the side of her friend, Ella, and as he was leaving them together in each other's arms, he heard Ella say:

"Ah, Phyllis, I know it now. He was the man who had all my love--all--all! Ah, if G.o.d would only give me another chance--one more chance!"

Mr. Ayrton had heard that pa.s.sionate appeal for another chance upon more than one previous occasion. He had heard the husband who had tortured his wife to death make a pa.s.sionate appeal to G.o.d to give him another chance. He knew that G.o.d had never given him another chance with the same wife; but G.o.d had given him another wife in the course of time--a wife who was not made on the spiritual lines of those who die by torture; a wife who was able to formulate a list of her own rights, and the rights of her sisters, and who possessed a Will.

The man who wanted another chance had no chance with such a woman.

He had heard the wife, who had deserted her husband in favor of the teetotal platform, cry out for another chance, when her husband had died away from her. But G.o.d had compa.s.sion upon the husband. She did not get him back.

He pitied with all his heart the poor woman who would be one of the richest women in England in the course of a day or two, and he said so to Mr. Courtland when he called early in the morning. Mr. Courtland did not remain for long in the house. It might have been a.s.sumed that so intimate a friend of Mr. and Mrs. Linton's would be an acceptable visitor to the widow; but Mr. Courtland knew better. He hurried away to town without even asking to see her. He only begged of Mr. Ayrton to let him know if he could be of any use in town--there were details--ghastly; but he would take care that there was no inquest.

Phyllis went up to town with poor Ella, and remained by her side in that darkened house through all the terrible days that followed. Mr. Linton's death had an appreciable influence upon the quarter's revenue of the country. The probate duty paid by the executors was a large fortune in itself, and Ella was, as Mr. Ayrton had predicted she would be, one of the richest women in England. The hundred thousand pounds bequeathed to some unostentatious charities--charities that existed for the cause of charity, not for the benefit of the official staff--made no difference worth speaking of in the position of Mrs. Linton as one of the richest women in England.

But the codicil to the will which surprised most people was that which placed in the hands of Mrs. Linton and the Rev. George Holland as joint trustees the sum of sixty thousand pounds, for the building and endowment of a church, the character and aims of which would be in sympathy with the principles recently formulated by the Rev. George Holland in his book ent.i.tled "Revised Versions," and in his magazine article ent.i.tled "The Enemy to Christianity," the details to be decided by the Rev. George Holland and Mrs. Linton as joint trustees.

The codicil was, of course, a very recent one; but it was executed in proper form; it required two pages of engrossing to make the testator's desires plain to every intelligence that had received a thorough training in legal technicalities. It was susceptible of a good deal of interpretation to an ordinary intelligence.

When it was explained to Mrs. Linton, she also was at first a good deal surprised. It read very like a jest of some subtlety: for she had no idea that her husband had the slightest feeling one way or another on the subject of the development of one Church or another; and as for the establishment of an entirely new Church--yes, it struck her at first that her solicitor was making a bold and certainly quite an unusual attempt to cheer her up in her bereavement by bringing under her notice a jest of the order _pachydermato_.

But soon it dawned upon her that her husband meant a good deal by this codicil of his.

"I am getting to understand him better every day," she said to Phyllis.

"He knew that I loved him and him only. He has given me this work to do, and with G.o.d's help I will do it thoroughly. You did not believe in the value of George Holland's doctrines. Neither did I: I never thought about them. I will accept my husband's judgment regarding them, and perhaps I may think about them later on. Our Church will be the most potent influence for good that the century has yet seen. Yes, I will throw myself heart and soul into the work. After all, it must be admitted that the Church has never done its duty as a Church."

Phyllis said nothing.

But the Rev. George Holland had a good deal to say on the subject of the codicil, when he was alone with Mrs. Linton, a few days later. He had by no means made up his mind to sever his connection with the dear old mother Church, he said. He could not see that there was any need for his taking so serious a step--an irrevocable step. It was his feeling at that moment, he declared, that he might be able to effect the object of his life--which was, of course, the reform of the Church--better by remaining within its walls than by severing himself from it. He must take time to consider his position.

He left Mrs. Linton greatly disappointed. It had been her belief that Mr. Holland would jump at the chance--that was the phrase which she employed in expressing her disappointment to Phyllis--of becoming the founder of a brand-new religion.

She was greatly disappointed in Mr. Holland. If Buddha or Edward Irving, or some of the other founders of new religions had had such a chance offered to them in early life, would they not have embraced it eagerly?

she asked.

And it was to be such a striking Church! She had made up her mind to that. It was to be a lasting memorial to the largeness of soul of her husband--to his appreciation of the requirements of the thinking men and women of the age. She had made up her mind already as to the character of the painted windows. The church would itself, of course, be the purest Gothic. As for the services, she rather thought that the simplicity of the Early Church might be effectively combined with some of the most striking elements of Modern Ritualism. However, that would have to be decided later on.

But when the bishop heard of the codicil he had another interview with George Holland, and imparted to that young cleric his opinion that he should avail himself of the opportunity offered to him of trying what would undoubtedly be a most interesting experiment, and one to the carrying out of which all true churchmen would look forward most hopefully. Who could say, he inquired, if the larger freedom which would be enjoyed by an earnest, sincere, and highly intellectual clergyman, not in immediate contact with the Establishment, might not avail him to perfect such a scheme of reform as would eventually be adopted by the Church?

That interview was very helpful to George Holland in making up his mind on the subject of the new Church. He resigned his pastorate, greatly to the regret of the churchwardens; though no expression of such regret was ever heard from the bishop.

But then a bishop is supposed to have his feeling thoroughly under control.

This happened three weeks after the death of Stephen Linton, and during these weeks Herbert Courtland had never once asked to see Ella Linton.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

MARRIAGE IS THE PICTURESQUE GATEWAY LEADING TO A COMMONPLACE ESTATE.

So soon as Phyllis Ayrton had returned home, she got a letter from Herbert Courtland, asking her if she would be good enough to grant him an interview. She replied at once that it would please her very much to see him on the following afternoon--she was going to Scotland with her father in a week, if Parliament had risen by that time.

He came to her. She was alone in the drawing room where she had always received him previously.

The servant had scarcely left the room before he had told her he had come to tell her that he loved her--to ask her if he might hope to have some of her love in return.

He had not seated himself, nor had she. They remained standing together in the middle of the room. He had not even retained her hand.

"Why have you come to me--to _me_?" she asked him. Her face was pale and her lips, when he had been speaking to her, were firmly set.

"I have come to you, not because I am worthy of the priceless gift of your love," said he, "but because you have taught me not merely to love you--you have taught me what love itself is. You have saved my soul."

"No, no! do not say that; it pains me," she cried.

"I cannot but say it; it is the truth. You have saved me from a degradation such as you could not understand. Great G.o.d! how should I feel to-day if you had not come forward to save me?"

He walked away from her. He stood with his back turned to her, looking out of the window.

She remained where he had left her. She did not speak. Why should she speak?

He suddenly faced her once again. The expression upon his face astonished her. She had never before seen a man so completely in the power of a strong emotion. She saw him making the attempt to speak, but not succeeding for some time. Her heart was full of pity for him.

"You--you cannot understand," he managed to say. "You cannot understand, and I cannot, I dare not, try to explain anything of the peril from which you s.n.a.t.c.hed me. You know nothing of the baseness, the cruelty, of a man who allows himself to be swayed by his own pa.s.sions. But you saved me--you saved me!"

"I thank G.o.d for that," she said slowly. "But you must not come to me to ask me for my love. It is not to me you should come. It is for her who was ready to sacrifice everything for you. You must go to her when the time comes, not now--she has not recovered from her shock."

"You know--she has told you?"

"I knew all that terrible story--that pitiful story--before I heard it from her lips."

"And yet--yet--you could speak to me--you could be with me day after day?"

"Oh, I know what you would say! You would say that I led you on--that I gave you to believe that I loved you. That is what you would say, and it would be the truth. I made up my mind to lead you on; I gave you to understand that I cared for you. But I confess to you now that I did so because I hoped to save her. You see it was a plot on my part--the plot of one woman anxious to save her sister from destruction. I succeeded.