The Shadow of the Past Part 36

For a while he lay and watched the dimly burning lamp, and watching it lost consciousness of his surroundings in sleep once more.

When he woke again the dawn was breaking, and the cool fresh air of the early morning stole softly in through door and windows and fanned his fevered brow. He drank in long breaths of it eagerly, and looking forth at the increasing brightness, as it forced its way inside the silent room and slowly dispelled the shadows lurking there, he was made suddenly aware of another shadow that was not a part of the night, that did not vanish with the darkness but a.s.sumed more definite shape, appeared, while never moving, to draw nearer to him, to become less shadowy as the lesser shadows fled. It was a trick of the imagination he believed that formed out of the shadows in the dusky room the slender woman's figure which he descried dimly outlined against the reimpe curtain, with the dawn touching the pale hair, and falling wanly on the white still face. Was it a dream, he wondered; and feared to move for fear the dream would fade.

Quietly he lay and watched, feasting his eyes on the vision; and momentarily the day waxed brighter, and the shadowy form grew more distinct, took more substantial shape, became instinct with life and movement.

Slowly the reimpe curtain fell into place. With soft, inaudible footfall Honor advanced and stood beside the bed and looked down on him, a gentle solicitude in her steady eyes. He did not speak. He was afraid still that if he moved or made a sound she might vanish as unexpectedly as she had come. He could not have borne the disappointment had she suddenly turned and left him.

And then she spoke. Her voice broke the spell and sent the blood coursing once more madly through his veins. This was no dream. He was awake, and Honor stood there in the dawn beside his bed.

"You have slept well," she said. "You are better?"

"I am quite fit," he answered. "It was all I needed, a good sleep. How did you come? I never heard you enter."

She laughed softly.

"I've been here with you all night."

"You've been here? ... all night?" His tone was eloquent, eyes and voice bespoke his disappointment. "And I never knew! To sleep like that... and you here!"

"If knowledge of my presence would have kept you awake, I am glad you did not know," she said. "You were a little feverish. We did not like to leave you alone. But you've slept well."

She touched his neck lightly with her hand, the dear soft hand he longed to hold and kiss--the hand which he had taken and almost flung from him when he first heard of her marriage.

"The fever has gone," she added. "You will soon be all right."

"I'm all right now," he insisted. "I feel quite fit. It's awfully good of you to have bothered, but you ought not to have sat up; it wasn't necessary."

"I wasn't sure," she returned, "how badly you were hurt. I didn't realise at first that you were hurt. I am sorry... I want you to-- forgive that injury."

"Oh, that!" he said, and thought of the greater injury Holman had contrived. "I ran that risk with my eyes open. I'm not counting that."

She fell on her knees beside the bed and laid her two hands with swift impulsiveness upon his breast.

"I know," she said, speaking very quickly and in lowered tones, her face close to his, the soft eyes holding his eyes filled with an eager pleading which it was difficult to resist--"I know you and Heinrich are enemies... For that matter _we_ are enemies--you and I--"

"No," he interrupted sharply... "No... You and I, enemies! ...

Honor..."

"Ah!" she breathed softly, and the hands on his breast pressed more firmly. "I didn't mean that--not actually. Always in my heart I've known that couldn't be. You're my--"

"Lover," he interjected hoa.r.s.ely.

She winced and her face went white.

"Friend--my dear friend," she corrected, but so gently, and with so little real conviction in her voice that it was rather as though she admitted his definition of the relationship. "You are my friend. You must remain my friend... I want to keep--just that."

There were tears in her eyes now. She did not attempt to hide them: they welled there, priceless diamonds from a mine of ungathered wealth, welled, and overflowed, and fell on the man's breast. Matheson lay still, staring at her, and made no response.

"This is the last time we shall meet," she went on quietly, striving after and regaining something of her old composure. "You must not come this way again. It would have been better for us both if you had not come now. Why did you come?"

"I did not expect to see you," he replied, and evaded her eyes.

"I will tell you," she said. "You are seeking Heinrich--to kill him.

You meant to kill him..."

"I don't know." He moved uneasily. "I suppose that was it. He's a spy. He has been guilty of the worst form of sedition... I didn't know--how should I?--that--that you--Oh! my G.o.d! Honor, I would rather you had died than married him."

"Hush!" She placed a finger on his lips and silenced him. "You mustn't say those things to me. All that he has done he has done with my approval--for me and mine. He has worked for the Dutch cause for years..."

"And because of that," he interrupted savagely, "you felt it necessary to reward him with all that you had to give... As though he hasn't been well rewarded by his country, which pays its spies well for spreading sedition. And you're no longer Dutch--you are a German subject. You've renounced your people by your marriage. He'll renounce them too when it suits him."

She drew back, hurt and angry.

"I am not German," she contradicted proudly. "Heinrich's interest is identical with mine."

"Oh, well!" he said wearily. "It doesn't matter anyway. At least it isn't any business of mine. I'm sorry... but being sorry won't undo things. Your feet are on the road now which they always wanted to travel. And you can't see whither it is tending..."

"Can you?" she asked scornfully.

"I see it leading to disappointment and sorrow," he returned. "This pitiful rebellion which you have a.s.sisted in bringing about is going to make a sad difference in this land. And only hurt can come to you. It is going to throw a still darker shadow across your path. My dear, I'm grieved about that. If it were possible I would sweep all the shadows out of your life and leave it fair and untroubled; but that is a power no human will can compa.s.s. Why couldn't you leave the bitterness of strife to men, and turn your thoughts to gentler things? It's unnatural for women to cherish hate. Hate never accomplished anything but destruction. In this case it will be the destruction of your hopes and ambitions."

"We _must_ win," she a.s.serted doggedly. "This is our chance. We are bound to seize it. Your country can't send big armies to fight us now: you have bigger armies against you. You will lose this war, and we shall come again into our own. If only all the Dutch were with us! ...

I can't understand those Boers who go over to the British. It isn't loyal; it is abject servility."

"You are altogether mistaken," he said. "You don't understand the position. It isn't a question of going over to the British, but of protecting this country from a serious menace. These men lode deeper than you do; they have the welfare of the country at heart; they have bigger stakes to occupy themselves with than nursing a spirit of revenge. They think for the future generations--for their children, whose heritage this country is. You are thinking only of your grievances: you live in the past. The maker of history must live in the future. Can't you see, Honor, that you are fighting for your generation to the hurt of the generations to come? The statesman may not reckon for his own brief span; he has to look ahead."

She made no verbal response, but looked at him with quickening interest, her dark eyes glowing, the breath coming quickly from between her parted lips. Matheson caught her wrist and held it firmly while he talked.

"What will it benefit you," he asked, "to hoist your flag over the body of your brother, and the bodies of the sons and husbands of women who think with you? Life is too good a thing to spill it wantonly at the feet of a bloodless ideal. And you are too good and fine and gentle to waste your life in hate."

"Not hate," she corrected, the hot tears welling afresh. "Patriotism is not hate. Aren't you ready to spill your blood for your country?"

"You've got me there," he said, and smiled. "I'm going to defend this country from German avidity, anyhow."

"Ah!" she cried. "You preach against hate, yet you hate the Germans.

That isn't consistent. You do hate the Germans?"

"Yes," he admitted; "I suppose that's true. But I never hated a German before their b.e.s.t.i.a.l ravishment of Belgium. I never imagined anything so brutal could defame the prestige of a great nation. They will never live that down. The things they've done... And the spying and underhand work... Yes, I hate them all right."

"You hate Heinrich," she persisted.

"I hate the things he has done."

"I know," she said. "But what he has done, he has done for me. Always, when I was still a child, he loved me. Can you wonder that I feel grateful to him? I am sorry you hate him. I don't want harm to come to him through you... not through you. Promise me that you will go away and never seek to harm him in the future... Promise me that--for my sake."

Had Matheson not already realised that the punishment of Holman was no longer work for him he must have yielded to the earnest entreaty in Honor's voice and eyes, as with nervous insistence she urged her request that he would spare her husband; but her pleading stabbed him, and excited afresh his enmity towards the man.

"There is no need to wring promises from me," he said, a hardness he could not prevent steeling his voice. "The fact that he is your husband is sufficient. Had I known that sooner I should not be here now. As it is, more harm has come to me than to him. It was not compa.s.sion on his side that prevented him from murdering me."