When he came back to her she was ready to rise, lean on his arm, and walk leisurely to the house.

On the way she called his attention to a pale blue sheet of forget-me-nots spreading under the shrubbery. She noticed other new blossoms in the garden, lingered before the bed of white pansies.

"Like little faces," she said with a faint smile.

One silvery-grey iris he broke from its sheathed stem and gave her; she moved slowly on with the scented blossom lifted to her lips.

In the hall a starched and immaculate nurse met her with a significant nod of understanding. And so, between Clive and the trained nurse she mounted the stairs to her room.

Later Clive came in to sit beside her where she lay on her dainty bed.

She turned her flushed face on the pillow, smiled at him, and lifted her neck a little; and he slipped one arm under it.

"Such a wonderful pillow your shoulder makes," she murmured.... "I am thinking of the first time I ever knew it.... So quiet I lay,--such infinite caution I used whenever I moved.... That night the air was musical with children's voices--everywhere under the stars--softly garrulous, laughing, lisping, calling from the hills and meadows....

That night of miracles and of stars--my dear--my dearest!--"

Close to her cheek he breathed: "Are you in pain?"

"Oh, Clive! I am so happy. I love you so--I love you so."

Then nurse and physician came in and the latter took him by the arm and walked out of the room with him. For a long while they paced the pa.s.sage-way together in whispered conversation before the nurse came to the door and nodded.

Both went in: Athalie laughed and put up her arms as Clive bent over her.

"All will be well," she whispered, kissed him, then turned her head sharply to the right.

When he found himself in the garden, walking at random, the sun hung a hand's breadth over the woods. Later it seemed to become entangled amid new leaves and half-naked branches, hanging there motionless, blinding, glittering through an eternity of time.

And yet he did not notice when twilight came, nor when the dusk's purple turned to night until he saw lights turned up on both floors.

n.o.body summoned him to dinner but he did not notice that. Connor came to him there in the darkness and said that two other physicians had arrived with another nurse. He went into the library where they were just leaving to mount the stairs. They looked at him as they pa.s.sed but merely bowed and said nothing.

A steady, persistent clangour vibrated in his brain, dulling it, so that senses like sight and hearing seemed slow as though drugged.

Suddenly like a sword the most terrible fear he ever knew pa.s.sed through him.... And after a while the dull, ringing clangour came back, dinning, stupefying, interminable. Yet he was conscious of every sound, every movement on the floor above.

One of the physicians came halfway down the stairs, looked at him; and he rose mechanically and went up.

He saw nothing clearly in the room until he bent over Athalie.

Her eyes unclosed. She whispered: "It is all right, beloved."

Somebody led him out. He kept on, conscious of the grasp on his arm, but seeing nothing.

He had been walking for a long while, somewhere between light and darkness,--perhaps for hours, perhaps minutes. Then somebody came who laid an arm about his shoulder and spoke of courage.

Other people were in the room, now. One said:

"Don't go up yet."... Once he noticed a woman, Mrs. Connor, crying.

Connor led her away.

Others moved about or stood silent; and some one was always drawing near him, speaking of courage. It was odd that so much darkness should invade a lighted room.

Then somebody came down the stairs, noiselessly. The house was very still.

And at last they let him go upstairs.

CHAPTER x.x.x

Lights yet burned on the lower floors and behind the drawn blinds of Athalie's room. The night was quiet and soft and lovely; the moon still young in its first quarter.

There was no wind to blow the fountain jet, so that every drop fell straight back where the slim column of water broke against a strip of stars above the garden wall. Somewhere in distant darkness the little owl trilled.

If he were walking or motionless he no longer knew it; nor did he seem to be aware of anything around.

Hafiz came up to him through the dusk with a little mew of recognition or of loneliness. Afterward the cat followed him for a while and then settled down upon the gra.s.s intent on the invisible stirring stealthily in obscurity.

The fragrance of the iris grew sweeter, fresher. Many new buds had unfolded since high noon. One stalk had fallen across the path and Clive's dragging feet pa.s.sed over it where he moved blindly, at hazard, with stumbling steps along the path--errant, senseless, and always blind.

For on the garden bench a young girl sat, slender, exquisite, smiling as he approached. But he could not see her, nor could he see in her arms the little flower-like face, and the tiny hands against her breast.

"Clive!" she said. But he could not hear her.

"Clive," she whispered; "my beloved!"

But he could neither see nor hear. His knees, too, were failing; he put out one hand, blindly, and sank down upon the garden bench.

All night long she sat beside him, her head against his shoulder, sometimes touching his drawn face with warm, sweet lips, sometimes looking down at the little face pressed to her quiet breast.

And all night long the light burned behind the closed blinds of her room; and the little silvery dusk-moths floated in and out of the rays. And Hafiz, sitting on the gra.s.s, watched them sometimes; sometimes he gazed at his young mistress out of wide, unblinking eyes.

"Hafiz," she murmured lazily in her sweetly humorous way.

The cat uttered a soft little mew but did not move. And when she laid her cheek close to Clive's whispering,--"I love you--I love you so!"--he never stirred.

Her blue eyes, brooding, grew patient, calm, and tender; she looked down silently into the little face close cradled in her arms.

Then the child's eyes opened like two blue stars; and she bent over in a swift ecstasy of bliss, covering the flower-like face with kisses.