"Why?" he asked shortly.

But I made no answer, and he asked no more. He looked at me, made a step towards the door, turned back, and came close to me, speaking in a husky changed tone, -

"You shall command me, Daisy, as you have long done. Let me know what to do to please you."

He went away then and left me. And I gathered my strength together and went back to Mr. Thorold.

CHAPTER XXIII.

"HERE!"

From that time we all were, to all seeming, just as we had been before that day. Dr. Sandford went his rounds, with no change perceptible in his manner towards any- body, or towards me. I think I was not different in the ward from what I had been, except to one pair of eyes: The duties of every day rolled on as they had been accustomed to do; the singing of every night was just as usual. One thing was a little changed.

I sought no longer to hide that Mr. Thorold was something to me. The time for that was past. Of the few broken minutes that remained to us, he should lose none, nor I, by unnecessary difficulty. I was by his side now, all I could without neglecting those who also needed me. And we talked, all we could, with his strength and my time. I cared not now, that all the ward should see and know what we were to each other.

Mr. Thorold saw a change in me, and asked the reason. And I gave it. And then we talked no more of our own losses.

"I am quite ready to go, Daisy," he had said to me, with a look both bright and sweet which it breaks my heart, while it gladdens me, to remember. "You will come by and by, and I shall be looking for you; and I am ready now, love."

After that, we spoke no more of our parting. We talked a very great deal of other things, past and future; talks, that it seems to me - now were scarce earthly, for their pure high beauty, and truth, and joy. The strength of them will go with me all my life. Dr. Sandford let us alone; ministered, to Mr.

Thorold and me, all he could; and interfered with me no more.

Preston took an opportunity to grumble; but that was soon silenced, for I showed him that I would not bear it.

And the days in the hospital sped away. I do not know how; I did not know at the time. Only as one lives and works and breathes and sleeps in the presence of a single thought, enveloping and enfolding everything else. The life was hardly my own life; it was the life of another; or rather the two lives were for the time so joined that they were almost one.

In a sort happy, as long as it was so.

But I knew it could not last; and the utter uncertainty when it would end, oppressed me fearfully. Nothing in Mr. Thorold's looks or manner gave me any help to judge about it. His face was like itself always; his eye yet sometimes flashed and sparkled after its own brilliant fashion, as gayly and freely as ever. It always gave me untold pain; it brought life and death into such close neighbourhood, and seemed to mock at the necessity which hung over us. And then, if Mr. Thorold saw a shadow come over my brow, he would give me such words and looks of comfort and help, that again death was half swallowed up of a better life, before the time. So the days went; and Mr. Thorold said I grew thin; and the nurses and attendants were almost reverentially careful of me; and Dr. Sandford was a silent servant of mine and of Mr. Thorold's too, doing all that was possible for us both. And Preston was fearfully jealous and irritable; and wrote, I knew long afterwards, to my mother; and my mother sent me orders to return home to her at once and leave everything; and Dr. Sandford never gave me the letters. I missed nothing; knew nothing; asked nothing; until the day came that I was looking for.

It came, and left me. I had done all I had to do; all I wanted to do; I had been able to do it all. Through the hours of the last struggle, no hand but mine had touched him. It was borne, as everything else had been borne, with a clear, brave uncomplainingness; his eye was still bright and quiet when it met mine, and the smile sweet and ready. We did not talk much; we had done that in the days past; our thoughts were known to each other; we were both looking now to the time of next meeting. But his head lay on my shoulder at the very last, and his hand was in mine. I don't think I knew when the moment was; until somebody drew him out of my hands and placed him back on the pillow. It was I then closed the eyes; and then I laid my brow for a few minutes on the one that was growing cold, for the last leave-taking. n.o.body meddled with me; I saw and heard nothing; and indeed when I stood up I was blind; I was not faint, but I could see nothing. Some one took my hand, I felt, and drew my arm through his and led me away. I knew, as soon as my hand touched his arm, that it was Dr. Sandford.

I did not go back to the ward that day, and I never went back.

I charged Dr. Sandford with all my remaining care, and he accepted the charge. No illness seized me, but my heart failed. That was worse. Better have been sick. Bodily illness is easier to get at.

And there was n.o.body to minister to mine. Dr. Sandford's presence worried me, somehow. It ought not, but it did. Mrs.

Sandford was kind, and of course helpless to do me good. I think the doctor saw I was not doing well, nor likely to be better, and he brought me on to New York, to my mother.

Mamma understood nothing of what had pa.s.sed, except what Preston's letter had told her. I do not know how much, or what, it was; and I did not care. Mamma, however, was wrought up to a point of discomfort quite beyond the usual chronic unrest of the year past. She exclaimed at my appearance; complained of my change of manner; inveighed against hospitals, lady nurses, Dr. Sandford, the war, Yankees and Washington air; and declaimed against the religion which did not make daughters dutiful and attentive to their mothers. It was true, some of it; but my heart was dead, for the time, and powerless to heed. - I heard, and did not feel. I could not minister to my mother's happiness now, for I had no spring of strength in my own; and ministry that was not bright and winsome did, not content her. Such as I had I gave; I knew it was poor, and she said so.

As the spring drew on, and days grew gentle, and soft weather replaced the strong brace of the winter frost, my condition of health became more and more unsatisfactory. My mother grew seriously uneasy at length and consulted Dr. Sandford. And the next thing was Dr. Sandford's appearance at our hotel.

"What is the matter with you, Daisy?" he asked, very professionally. Mamma was out when he came.

"Nothing -" I answered; "except what will take its own time."

"Not like you, that answer," he said.

"It is like me now," I replied.

"We must get back to a better condition. It is not I good for you to be in this place. Would you like to go into quarters near Melbourne, for the summer?"

"Better than anything! - if you could manage it. Mamma would not like it."

"I think I can convince her."

Dr. Sandford I knew had powers of convincing, and I judge they were helped on this occasion by facts in the pecuniary state of our affairs, to which my mother could no longer quite shut her eyes. She had not money to remain where she was. I think she had not been able, properly, to be there, for a good while past; though the bills were paid somehow. But now her resources failed; the war was evidently ending disastrously for the South; her hopes gave way; and she agreed to let Dr.

Sandford make arrangements for our going into the country. It was very bitter to her, the whole draught she had to swallow; and the very fact of being under necessity. Dr. Sandford had a deal of trouble, I fancy, to find any house or arrangement that would content her. No board was procurable that could be endured even for a day. The doctor found at last, and hired, and put in order for us, a small cottage on the way between Melbourne and Crum Elbow; and there, early in June, mamma and I found ourselves established; "Buried," she said; "sheltered," I thought.

"I wish I was dead," mamma said next morning.

"Mamma - why do you speak so? just now."

"There is no sort of view here - nothing in the world but those gra.s.s fields."

"We have this fine elm tree over the house, mamma, to shade us. That is worth a great deal."

"If the windows had Italian shades, they would be better. What windows! Who do you suppose lived here before us?"

"Mamma, I do think it is very comfortable."

"I hope you will show that you think so, then. I have had no comfort in you for a long time past."

I thought, _I_ should never have comfort in anybody any more.

"What has changed you so?"

"Changes come to everybody, I suppose, mamma, now and then."

"Is that all your boasted religion is good for?"

I could not answer. Was it? What is the boat which can only sail in smooth water? But though feeling reproached, and justly, I was as far from help as ever. Mamma went on -

"You used to be always bright - with your sort of brightness; there was not much brilliance to it; but you had a kind of steady cheerfulness of your own, from a child. What has become of it?"

"Mamma, I am sorry it is gone. Perhaps it will wake up one of these days."

"I shall die of heartache first. It would be the easiest thing I could do. To live here, is to die a long death. I feel as if I could not get a free breath now."

"I think, mamma, when we get accustomed to the place, we shall find pleasantness in it. It is a world pleasanter than New York."

"No, it is not," said mamma vehemently; "and it never will be.

In a city, you can cover yourself up, as it were, and half hide yourself from even yourself; in such a place as this, there is not a line in your lot but you have; leisure to trace it all out; and there is not a rough place in your life but you have time to put your foot on every separate inch of it.

Life is bare, Daisy; in a city one lives faster, and one is in a crowd, and things are covered up or one pa.s.ses them over somehow. I shall die here!"

"Next spring you can have Melbourne again, mamma, you know."

But mamma burst into tears. I knew not how to comfort.

"Would'st thou go forth to bless? be sure of thine own ground; "Fix well thy centre first; then draw thy circle round."