This satisfied her. "I may rest a little now," she said.

He too was silent; held down by the heavy hand of despair.

The time had been, in the days of his failing health, when the solemn shadows of evening falling over the fields--the soaring song of the lark in the bright heights of the midday sky--the dear lost remembrances that the divine touch of music finds again--brought tears into his eyes.

They were dry eyes now! Those once tremulous nerves had gathered steady strength, on the broad prairies and in the roving life. Could trembling sorrow, seeking its way to the sources of tears, overbear the robust vitality that rioted in his blood, whether she lived or whether she died? In those deep breathings that had alarmed her, she had indeed heard the struggle of grief, vainly urging its way to expression against the masterful health and strength that set moral weakness at defiance.

Nature had remade this man--and Nature never pities.

It was an effort to her to collect her thoughts--but she did collect them. She was able to tell him what was in her mind.

"Do you think, Ovid, your mother will care much what becomes of me, when I die?"

He started at those dreadful words--so softly, so patiently spoken. "You will live," he said. "My Carmina, what am I here for but to bring you back to life?"

She made no attempt to dispute with him. Quietly, persistently, she returned to the thought that was in her.

"Say that I forgive your mother, Ovid--and that I only ask one thing in return. I ask her to leave me to you, when the end has come. My dear, there is a feeling in me that I can't get over. Don't let me be buried in a great place all crowded with the dead! I once saw a picture--it was at home in Italy, I think--an English picture of a quiet little churchyard in the country. The shadows of the trees rested on the lonely graves. And some great poet had written--oh, such beautiful words about it. _The red-breast loves to build and warble there, And little footsteps lightly print the ground._ Promise, Ovid, you will take me to some place, far from crowds and noise--where children may gather the flowers on my grave."

He promised--and she thanked him, and rested again.

"There was something else," she said, when the interval had passed. "My head is so sleepy. I wonder whether I can think of it?"

After a while, she did think of it.

"I want to make you a little farewell present. Will you undo my gold chain? Don't cry, Ovid! oh, don't cry!"

He obeyed her. The gold chain held the two lockets--the treasured portraits of her father and her mother. "Wear them for my sake," she murmured. "Lift me up; I want to put them round your neck myself."

She tried, vainly tried, to clasp the chain. Her head fell back on his breast. "Too sleepy," she said; "always too sleepy now! Say you love me, Ovid."

He said it.

"Kiss me, dear."

He kissed her.

"Now lay me down on the pillow. I'm not eighteen yet--and I feel as old as eighty! Rest; all I want is rest." Looking at him fondly, her eyes closed little by little--then softly opened again. "Don't wait in this dull room, darling; I will send for you, if I wake."

It was the only wish of hers that he disobeyed. From time to time, his fingers touched her pulse, and felt its feeble beat. From time to time, he stooped and let the faint coming and going of her breath flutter on his cheek. The twilight fell, and darkness began to gather over the room. Still, he kept his place by her, like a man entranced.

CHAPTER LIX.

The first trivial sound that broke the spell, was the sound of a match struck in the next room.

He rose, and groped his way to the door. Teresa had ventured upstairs, and had kindled a light. Some momentary doubt of him kept the nurse silent when he looked at her. He stammered, and stared about him confusedly, when he spoke.

"Where--where--?" He seemed to have lost his hold on his thoughts--he gave it up, and tried again. "I want to be alone," he said; recovering, for the moment, some power of expressing himself.

Teresa's first fear of him vanished. She took him by the hand like a child, and led him downstairs to his rooms. He stood silently watching her, while she lit the candles.

"When Carmina sleeps now," he asked, "does it last long?"

"Often for hours together," the nurse answered.

He said no more; he seemed to have forgotten that there was another person in the room.

She found courage in her pity for him. "Try to pray," she said, and left him.

He fell on his knees; but still the words failed him. He tried to quiet his mind by holy thoughts. No! The dumb agony in him was powerless to find relief. Only the shadows of thoughts crossed his mind; his eyes ached with a burning heat. He began to be afraid of himself. The active habits of the life that he had left, drove him out, with the instincts of an animal, into space and air. Neither knowing nor caring in what direction he turned his steps, he walked on at the top of his speed. On and on, till the crowded houses began to grow more rare--till there were gaps of open ground, on either side of him--till the moon rose behind a plantation of trees, and bathed in its melancholy light a lonely high road. He followed the road till he was tired of it, and turned aside into a winding lane. The lights and shadows, alternating with each other, soothed and pleased him. He had got the relief in exercise that had been denied him while he was in repose. He could think again; he could feel the resolution stirring in him to save that dear one, or to die with her. Now at last, he was man enough to face the terrible necessity that confronted him, and fight the battle of Art and Love against Death. He stopped, and looked round; eager to return, and be ready for her waking. In that solitary place, there was no hope of finding a person to direct him. He turned, to go back to the high road.

At that same moment, he became conscious of the odour of tobacco wafted towards him on the calm night air. Some one was smoking in the lane.

He retraced his steps, until he reached a gate--with a barren field behind it. There was the man, whose tobacco smoke he had smelt, leaning on the gate, with his pipe in his mouth.

The moonlight fell full on Ovid's face, as he approached to ask his way.

The man suddenly stood up--stared at him--and said, "Hullo! is it you or your ghost?"

His face was in shadow, but his voice answered for him. The man was Benjulia.

"Have you come to see me?" he asked.

"No."

"Won't you shake hands?"

"No."

"What's wrong?"

Ovid waited to answer until he had steadied his temper.

"I have seen Carmina," he said.

Benjulia went on with his smoking. "An interesting case, isn't it?" he remarked.

"You were called into consultation by Mr. Null," Ovid continued; "and you approved of his ignorant treatment--you, who knew better."

"I should think I did!" Benjulia rejoined.

"You deliberately encouraged an incompetent man; you let that poor girl go on from bad to worse--for some vile end of your own."

Benjulia good-naturedly corrected him. "No, no. For an excellent end--for knowledge."

"If I fail to remedy the mischief, which is your doing, and yours alone--"

Benjulia took his pipe out of his mouth. "How do you mean to cure her?"

he eagerly interposed. "Have you got a new idea?"