Maud was inexpressibly shocked at her husband's appearance. Neither the telegrams nor the doctors' notes nor Boldero's description had in the faintest degree prepared her for what she saw. She had heard of death, and even seen it, but in its gentle, peaceful, unagonised aspect; she had seen illness, but in its milder mood, as it visits the European household: not the savage, destroying, desolating demon-angel that waves a sword across the cholera-stricken plain or city in the East. A sickness of a few days, a few hours, shatters the sufferer's frame, blurs out the familiar features, leaves the stalwart man a quivering skeleton, deadens the sense and clouds the strong mind with a deep, dreadful shadow of oblivion.

And to this stage Sutton had come. Maud, despite all entreaties and warnings, went straight to her husband's side and let the full horror of the scene take possession of her soul. It wrung her very heart to see him--the man whom, after all, she loved with a pa.s.sion which, if sometimes forgotten, was never extinct for an instant. She had loved him at first; she loved him now ten times more than ever. She had wronged him, neglected him, dishonoured him--alas, how grievously!--her one hope lay in confession, reconciliation, forgiveness: and he lay there, more dead than alive--speechless, motionless, except when some spasm of suffering shook him--and, so far as outward sign showed, unconscious of her presence. Maud thanked Heaven that she was on the spot to know and see the worst, and yet it was almost more than she could bear. Her load of anguish seemed too much for one till now a stranger to sorrow. Again and again some old trait in the haggard, suffering face, a moan of pain, a gesture too slight from weakness to be intelligible to any eye but hers, touched a fresh chord in her heart, broke down her wavering fort.i.tude, and sent her rushing to her room to shed in solitude the tears of sorrow and remorse. Again and again she washed away the useless tears, nerved herself once more to maintain a courageous exterior, and returned, with a fort.i.tude which she felt gather strength within her, to the sad task of watching and waiting for the crisis which a few hours more must bring.

Let us leave that terrible pa.s.sage of Maud's life, with its trembling, agonising suspense, its heartfelt vows and prayers, its remorseful tears, its thrilling hopes, its mysterious communings with another world. Let us drop a curtain over that solemn season. Maud will emerge from it, we may be sure, with a new-born fort.i.tude, patience, loftiness of soul; courage, the child of suffering; calmness, the attribute of those who have been close upon despair.

A fortnight later Sutton was lying in the drawing-room, with no other malady than excessive weakness, and with no other occupation than to recruit his shattered powers. Maud was busied with the composition of some appetising beverage, which was, the doctor said, the only kind of medicine of which he now stood in need, and which could, in Maud's and her husband's opinion, be properly concocted and administered by no hand but hers. Then the invalid's pillows needed skilful arrangement, for he was still at the stage when mere lying still is an exertion which seems to tax every limb and muscle in the aching frame. Maud found an indescribable relief and pleasure in waiting on her husband, and proved herself a nature-taught adept in the kindly art of nursing. Every act, though her husband knew it not, had, to Maud's aching conscience, a sort of penitential devotion about it, and said a hundred things of love and sorrow which as yet found no utterance in spoken words.

'What a model wife!' said Sutton, as he lay watching her movements, in grateful admiration at her skill and care on his behalf.

'Ah! but,' said Maud, thankful for the opportunity of the confession she was longing to make, 'I am not a model wife at all, but just everything that a model ought not to be.'

'Then,' said Jem gallantly, 'I am for you, and not for the model, whoever drew it.'

'Jem,' she said, with sudden seriousness, 'I want to tell you something, and be forgiven. I meant to do so before, but you have been too poorly.

I am afraid it will hurt you. I have been going on very stupidly at Elysium, and very wrongly, and doing everything that you would most have disliked, and that I dislike now--oh! how bitterly!'

Sutton, to Maud's great relief, did not seem in the least surprised or inclined to be serious about the matter. He took her hand and held it with the kindest caressing manner.

'I have no doubt,' he said, 'that Mrs. Vereker did all she could to get you into a sc.r.a.pe. It was a shame of me to let you go to her.'

'No,' said Maud, 'it was not her fault at all. The truth is, I have been flirting with--some one.'

'Some one,' said Sutton, 'has been trying to flirt with you, you mean, and no wonder. Some one showed his good taste at any rate.'

'Yes, but,' said the penitent, 'I flirted with him. I think I must have been crazy.'

'You risked your life, dear, to come and be with me. Why look further back than that? I cannot.'

'But,' said Maud, her cheeks burning scarlet at the awful confession which conscience compelled her to make, 'that is not all: _I gave him a kiss_.'

'Then,' said her husband, 'you gave him a great deal more than he deserved, whoever he was. Well, now, give me one, and let us say no more about it.'

The blinding tears fell fast and hot as Maud bent over her husband's haggard face and exchanged the sweet pledge of reconciliation, confidence, and love. There was something so generous, sparing and delicately magnanimous in her husband's ready, uninquiring forgiveness, and his refusal to know more of a matter which it grieved and shamed her to narrate. Maud knew that his was a temperament which jealousy would torture like any Oth.e.l.lo's, and that his pa.s.sion against an offender, had it once forced its way to light, would have been a sort of fury. She could perfectly realise to herself her husband doing anything--the worst--to a man who, he thought, had in the slightest degree wronged him. He was accustomed to stern deeds and stern sights, and, as any man does who has a hundred times seen death face to face and found nothing to dread in it, held life the cheapest of all his treasures. Maud had felt an awful misgiving lest he should utter some dreadful, quiet threat at the wrong-doer. As it was, her husband would not even know his name and treated the whole thing as a mere childish misadventure. It was indeed an heroic kindness. Her whole nature went out to him in thankfulness and love; she bent her head beside him and hid her face and wept in the fulness of her heart. No wonder his soldiers had learnt to worship him. No word more was spoken, but Sutton had good cause to know that the last touch of waywardness, the last fickle mood, the forgetful moment, the girlish caprice, were gone for ever--the last spot in her heart that had not been wholly his was carried at last. 'I am thankful,'

the surgeon said, 'that he is better: the poor child is ten times more in love with him than ever.'

Then the three friends had a very happy time. It is so pleasant to be getting well; and nursing, too, is a pleasant labour when the invalid is interesting and considerate and well-beloved. Happy the patient whose lot it is to pa.s.s from the dreary land of sickness with such sweet companionship! Boldero, though the gravity of his loss kept pace in his thoughts with each new-discovered charm in Maud, got himself into an heroic mood, and derived a satisfaction, less blackened with melancholy than he would have conceived possible, from the sight of his friend's felicity. At any rate he made himself very pleasant--was always available for whatever was wanted of him--submitted, it is probable, to a little delightful tyranny from the woman he adored, and went away at last leaving almost a little blank behind him.

'How kind and useful he has been!' Maud said, as they watched his cavalcade winding along the valley; 'and how clever about your barley-water! Yes--I certainly like him.'

'Like him!' said Sutton. 'I should think so. He is the best fellow in the world.'

'Yes,' said his wife, 'all the same there is something pleasant in a _tete-a-tete_; and I don't like anybody taking care of you but me.'

L'ENVOI.

Joy, gentle friends, joy and fresh days of love Accompany your hearts!

Hope, which catches up the brush as it falls from the narrator's hand, adds yet another scene, in the faint, hazy, indistinct hues of a distant horizon, to the picture at which we have been looking for awhile.

We are on Aldershot Heath. Troops are marching up from different directions; orderlies are galloping wildly on their behests; words of command ring noisily through the air; great ma.s.ses of red come looming out of the dust as each regiment tramps solidly along; there is the roar of cannon from the neighbouring hill; the horse artillery goes rattling by like a hurricane of horses and iron; in front is a long array of spectators, and in the midst a blaze of uniforms and the carriage where a gracious Sovereign sits to inspect and compliment the heroes of the day--the men who had served their country well; for there has been a successful expedition, led by an Indian General; and the victorious army, with its leader, bearing his honours thick upon him, at its head, is marching past amidst the shouts of a joyful and sympathetic crowd.

When Sutton, for it is he, has pa.s.sed the Royal carriage and made his salute, he turns his horse and joins the staff who glitter round their Sovereign. Kind words are spoken and a Royal hand adds one more to his long list of decorations. Presently he makes his way to a group of ladies in a carriage near at hand. There is Felicia, with a sweet, matronly air, her beautiful features none the less fair for the lines that sorrow had left upon them and some silvery threads among the waving gold; she sits serene and joyous in the presence of two lovely girls, Sutton's playfellows of old, now, as he tells them, when he wants to be very polite, the very repet.i.tion of their mother. Vernon is in England, at home for his last furlough, and beyond lies, near enough now to be a source of pleasure, not of pain, the prospect of a final settlement at home. Beside Felicia sits Maud, blushing under her husband's honours, but rejoicing that all the world should recognise his claim to homage.

As he comes up the smile that she gives him tells us that all is more than well between them. Suddenly she jumps up with an exclamation, for she has recognised a familiar face--it is Boldero, who is making his way to them through the crowd. He brings a blushing lady on his arm, and he is blushing too, and there are introductions and greetings which sound as if his old love-wound had been healed by the only effectual remedy.

Meanwhile the long armed array is flowing steadily past. Maud, who is quite the soldier's wife, criticises and approves. At length the last regiment has come and gone, the last band has crashed out its music, the Royal carriage makes a move, the staff gallops away, the crowd is pushing and hurrahing and scattering itself over the wide plain; the shades of evening are gathering over it; the Indian friends drive off merrily for home; the scene fades--fades and dies away.

Let us leave this party of happy people to themselves--we must be their companions no longer.

THE END.