Thus December left them, and the dark foggy days of January flew apace.

It was close upon February before Nan recovered from a severe cold which had a.s.sailed her about Christmas time, and left her very weak. For a week or two she was confined entirely to her room, and when she came downstairs she was forced for a time to keep to the warm atmosphere of one sitting-room. But one day, when February was close at hand, and the fogs had begun to clear away, she felt so much stronger that she resolved to make a new departure and show Sydney that she was really better. Instead of going into the drawing-room, therefore, she came down another flight of stairs, and resolved to establish herself in Sydney's study, ready to greet him on his return.

But Sydney was late, and she was rather weaker than she knew. She had her tea, and ordered lights to be brought in, and the curtains drawn, but still he did not come. Then she found that the lights hurt her eyes, and she had them extinguished--all but one small silver lamp which stood on a centre-table, and gave a very subdued light. Her maid came and put a soft fur rug over her, and at her orders moved a screen of carved woodwork, brought from an Arab building in Algeria, between her and the fire before she left the room. Thus comfortably installed, the warmth and the dimness of the light speedily made Nan sleepy. She forgot to listen for the sound of her husband's latchkey; she fell fast asleep, and must have remained so for the greater part of an hour.

The fire went down, and its flickering flame no longer illuminated the room. The soft light of the lamp did not extend very far, and the screen, which was tall and dark, threw the sofa on which Nan lay into deep shadow. The rug completely covered the lower part of her dress, and as the sofa stood between the wall and the fire-place on that side of the room furthest removed from the door, any one entering might easily believe that the room was empty. Indeed, unless Nan stirred in her sleep, there was nothing at all to show that she was lying on the couch.

Thus, when Sydney entered his study about a quarter to seven, with a companion whom he had found waiting for him on the door-step, it would have been impossible for him to conjecture the presence of his wife. He did not light another lamp. The first words of his visitor had startled him into forgetting that the room was dark--perhaps, as the interview went on, he was glad of the obscurity into which his face was thrown.

And the sounds of the low-toned conversation did not startle Nan from her slumber all at once. She had heard several sentences before she realized where she was and what she was listening to, and then very natural feelings kept her silent and motionless.

"No, I've not come for money," were the first words she heard. "Quite a different errand, Mr. Campion. It is some weeks since I left you now, and I left you because I had a competency bequeathed to me by an uncle."

"Pleased to hear it, I am sure, Johnson," was Sydney's response. "As you mentioned the name of another person, I thought that you had perhaps had a letter from her----"

"I have seen her, certainly, several times of late. And I am the bearer of a message from her. She has always regretted that she took a certain sum of money from you when she first found out how you had deceived her; and she wishes you to understand that she wants nothing more from you.

The fact is, sir, I have long been very sorry for her misfortunes, and now that I am independent, I have asked her to marry me and go with me to America."

There was a little silence. "I am quite willing to provide for the child," said Sydney, "and----"

"No," said the man, almost sternly; "hear me out first, Mr. Campion. She owes her misery to you, and, no doubt, you have always thought that money could make atonement. But that's not my view, nor hers. We would rather not give you the satisfaction of making what _you_ call rest.i.tution. Milly's child--your child, too--will be mine now; I shall adopt it for my own when I marry her. You will have nothing to do with either of them. And I have brought you back the twenty pounds which you gave her when you cruelly deserted her because you wanted to marry a rich woman. In that parcel you will find a locket and one or two other things that you gave her. I have told her, and Miss Campion, who has been the best of friends to us both, has told her that she must henceforth put the memory of you behind her, and live for those whom she loves best."

"Certainly; it is better that she should," said Sydney.

"That is all I have to say," Johnson remarked, "except that I shall do my best to help her to forget the past. But if ever _you_ can forget your own cruelty and black treachery and villainy towards her----"

"That will do. I will not listen to insult from you or any man."

"You should rather be grateful to me for not exposing you to the world,"

said Johnson, drily, as he moved towards the door. "If it knew all that I know, what would your career be worth, Mr. Campion? As it is, no one knows the truth but ourselves and your sister, and all I want to remind you of is, that if we forget it, and if you forget it, I believe there is a G.o.d somewhere or other who never forgets."

"I am much obliged to you for the reminder," said Sydney, scornfully.

But he could not get back the usual clearness of his voice.

Johnson went out without another word, and a minute later the front door was heard to close after him. Sydney stood perfectly still until that sound was heard. Then he moved slowly towards the table, where an envelope and a sealed packet were lying side by side. He looked at them for a minute or two, and flung himself into an arm-chair beside the table with an involuntary groan of pain. He was drawing the packet towards him, when a movement behind the screen caused him to spring desperately to his feet.

It was Nan, who had risen from the sofa and stood before him, her face white as the gown she wore, her eyes wide with a new despair, her fingers clutching at the collar of her dress as if the swelling throat craved the relief of freedom from all bands. Sydney's heart contracted with a sharp throb of pain, anger, fear--he scarcely knew which was uppermost. It flashed across his mind that he had lost everything in life which he cared for most--that Nan would despise him, that she would denounce him as a sorry traitor to his friends, that the story--a sufficiently black one, as he knew--would be published to the world.

Disgrace and failure had always been the things that he had chiefly feared, and they lay straight before him now.

"I heard," Nan said, with white lips and choking utterance. "I was asleep when you came, but I think I heard it all. Is it true? There was some one--some one--that you left--for me?--some one who ought to have been your wife?"

"I swear I never loved anyone but you," he broke out, roughly and abruptly, able neither to repel nor to plead guilty to the charge she made, but miserably conscious that his one false step might cost him all that he held most dear. To Nan, the very vagueness and--as she deemed it--the irrelevance of his answer const.i.tuted an acknowledgment of guilt.

"Sydney," she murmured, catching at the table for support, and speaking so brokenly that he had difficulty in distinguishing the words, "Sydney--I cannot pay _this_ debt!"

And then she fell at his feet in a swoon, which at first he mistook for death.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

"SO SHALL YE ALSO REAP."

For some time Nan's life hung in the balance. It seemed as though a straw either way would suffice to turn the scales. Dead silence reigned in the house in Thurloe Square: the street outside was ankle-deep in straw: doctors and nurses took possession of Nan's pretty rooms, where all her graceful devices and gentle handicrafts were set aside, and their places filled with a grim array of medicaments. The servants, who loved their mistress, went about with melancholy faces and m.u.f.fled voices; and the master of the house, hitherto so confident and self-reliant, presented to the world a stony front of silent desolation, for which n.o.body would have given Sydney Campion credit.

"Over-exertion or mental shock must have brought it on," said the doctor, when questioned by Lady Pynsent as to the cause of Mrs.

Campion's illness.

"She can't have had a mental shock," said Lady Pynsent, decidedly. "She must have over-excited herself. Do you know how she did it, Sydney?"

"She fainted at my feet almost as soon as I saw her," said Sydney. "I don't know what she had been doing all the afternoon."

n.o.body else seemed to know, either. The maid bore witness that her mistress had insisted on going downstairs, and it was generally supposed that this expedition had been too much for her strength. Only Sydney knew better, and he would not confide his knowledge to Lady Pynsent, although he spoke with more freedom to the doctor.

"Yes, she had bad news which distressed her. She fainted upon hearing it."

"That did the mischief. She was not in a condition to bear excitement,"

said the doctor, rather sharply; but he was sorry for his words, when he noted the distressed look on Sydney's face. He was the more sorry for him when it was discovered that he could not be admitted to the sick-room, for his appearance sent Nan's pulse up to fever-height at once, although she did not openly confess her agitation. The only thing that Sydney could do was to retire, baffled and disconsolate, to his study, where he pa.s.sed the night in a state of indescribable anxiety and excitement.

When the fever abated, Nan fell into such prostration of strength that it was difficult to believe she would ever rise from her bed again.

Weaker than a baby, she could move neither hand nor foot: she had to be fed like an infant, at intervals of a few minutes, lest the flame of life, which had sunk so low, should suddenly go out altogether. It was at this point of her illness that she fainted when Sydney once persuaded the doctor to let him enter her room, and the nurses had great difficulty in bringing her back to consciousness. After which, there was no more talk of visits from her husband, and Sydney had to resign himself to obtaining news of her from the doctor and the nurses, who, he fancied, looked at him askance, as blaming him in their hearts for his wife's illness.

"I can't make Nan out," said Lady Pynsent to him one day. "She is so depressed--she cries if one looks at her almost--and yet the very thing that I expected her to be unhappy about does not affect her in the least."

"What do you mean?" said Sydney.

"Why, her disappointment about her baby, of course. I said something about it, and she just whispered, 'I'm very glad.' I suppose it is simply that she feels so weak, otherwise I should have thought it unnatural in Nan, who was always so fond of children."

Sydney made no answer. He was beginning to find this state of things intolerable. After all, he asked himself, what had he done that his wife should be almost killed by the shock of finding out that he had behaved--as other men behaved? But that sort of reasoning would not do.

His behavior to Milly had been, as he knew, singularly heartless; and he had happened to marry a girl whose greatest charm to him had been her tenderness of heart, her innocent candor, and that purity of mind which comes of hatred--not ignorance--of sin. A worldlier woman would not have been so shocked; but he had never desired less crystalline transparency of mind--less exquisite whiteness of soul, for Nan. No; that was the worst of it: the very qualities that he admired and respected in her bore witness against him now.

He remembered the last hours of his father's life--how they had been embittered by his selfish anger, for which he had never been able to make amends. Was his wife also to die without giving him a word of forgiveness, or hearing him ask her pardon? If she died, he knew that he would have slain her as surely as if he had struck her to the ground with his strong right hand. For almost the first time in his life Sydney found himself utterly unnerved by his anxiety. His love for Nan was the truest and strongest emotion that he had ever felt. And that his love for her should be sullied in her eyes by comparison with the transient influence which Milly had exercised over him was an intolerable outrage on his best and holiest affections and on hers. "What must she think of me?" he said to himself; and he was fain to confess that she could not think much worse of him than he deserved. It was a bitter harvest that he was reaping from seed that he himself had sown.

He was almost incapable of work during those terrible days when he did not know whether Nan would live or die. He got through as much as was absolutely imperative; but he dreaded being away from the house, lest that "change," of which the nurses spoke, should come during his absence; and he managed to stay at home for many hours of the day.

But at last the corner was turned: a little return of strength was reported, and by and by the doctor a.s.sured him that, although his patient still required very great care, the immediate danger was past, and there was at least a fair hope of her ultimate recovery. But he might not see her--yet.

So much was gained; but Sydney's spirits did not rise at once. He was conscious of some relief from the agony of suspense, but black care and anxiety sat behind him still. He was freer to come and go, however, than he had been for some time, and the first use he made of his liberty was to go to the very person whom he had once vowed never to see again--his sister Lettice.

She had written to him since his interview with her at Bute Lodge. She had told him of Alan's departure, and--to some extent--of its cause: she had given him the address of the lodgings to which she was now going (for a continued residence at Bute Lodge was beyond her means), and she sent him her sisterly love--and that was all. She had not condescended to any justification of her own conduct, nor had she alluded to the accusations that he had made, nor to his own discomfiture. But there had been enough quiet warmth in the letter to make him conscious that he might count on her forgiveness and affection if he desired it. And he did desire it. In the long hours of those sleepless nights and weary days in which he had waited for better news of Nan, it was astonishing to find how clearly the years of his boyhood had come back to him--those quiet, peaceful years in which he had known nothing of the darker sides of life, when the serene atmosphere of the rectory and the village had been dear to his heart, and Lettice had been his cherished companion and trusty comrade in work or play. It was like going back into another world--a purer and a truer world than the one in which he lived now.

And in these hours of retrospect, he came to clearer and truer conclusions respecting Lettice's character and course of action than he had been able to do before he was himself smitten by the hand of Fate.

Lettice was interpreted to him by Nan. There _were_ women in the world, it seemed, who had consciences, and pure hearts, and generous emotions: it was not for him to deny it now. And he had been very hard on Lettice in days gone by. He turned to her now with a stirring of affection which he had not known for years.

But when he entered Lettice's room, and she came to meet him, gravely, and with a certain inquiry in her look, he suddenly felt that he had no reason to give for his appearance there.

"Sydney!" she had exclaimed in surprise. Then, after the first long glance, and with a quick change of tone: "Sydney, are you ill?"