"Indeed, sir, I cannot remember. She never complained about herself at all. Stop, sir, she did last summer, too--what am I thinking of? I am so confused. She had a fall one night, sir. I found her in her dressing-room unconscious. Oh, she was very sick that night. She told me that she had fallen and her head had struck the table--the back of her head. For days she suffered terribly. Could it have been that, do you think?"

"Put your hand to the place on your head where she complained the pain was."

"How did she happen," Hamilton continued, when Annie had indicated the region, "to fall backward in her own room, Annie?"

"She never told me, doctor. I asked her but I can't remember what she said. It was the night before Mr. MacBirney left Cedar Lodge."

The doctors spent fruitless days in their efforts to overcome the unconsciousness. There was no longer any uncertainty as to the seat of the trouble. It lay in the brain itself and defied every attempt to relieve it. Even a momentary interval of reason was denied to the dumb sufferer.

Kimberly, on the evening of the third day, had summoned his medical advisers to his own room and asked the result of their consultation.

The frail and eminent man whom Hamilton and Bryson had brought from town told Kimberly the story. He could grasp only the salient points of what the specialist said: That in a coma such as they faced it was the diagnosis of the underlying conditions that was always important. That this was often difficult; sometimes, as now, impossible. That at times they encountered, as now, a case so obscure as to defy the resources of clinical medicine. Kimberly asked them their judgment as to the issue; the prognosis, they could only tell him, was doubtful, depending wholly upon the gravity of the apoplectic injury.

The Kimberly family rose to the emergency. Aware of the crisis that had come, through Alice, into Robert's life, Imogene and Dolly, on hand day and night, were mother and sister to him and to her. Nowhere in the situation was there any failure or weakening of support.

Hamilton, undismayed in the face of the physical catastrophe he had been called upon so unexpectedly to retrieve, and painfully aware of what the issue meant to his near and dear friend, never for an instant relaxed his efforts.

Seconded by his nurses, reinforced by his counsel and strengthened by Bryson's close co-operation, Hamilton faced the discouragement steadily, knowing only too well that the responsibility must rest, in the end, on him alone.

Absorbed, vigilant, tireless--pouring the reserve energy of years into the sustained struggle of the sleepless days and nights--he strove with every resource of his skill and watched unremittingly for an instant's abatement of the deadly lethargy that was crushing the vitality of the delicate woman before him.

Kimberly, following the slightest details of the sick-room hours, spent the day and the night at the bedside or in pacing the long hall. If he slept it was for an hour and after leaving orders to summon him instantly if Alice woke. They who cared for her knew what he meant by "waking." They knew how long and mutely, sometimes in the day, sometimes in the silence of the night, he watched her face for one returning instant of reason.

They knew how when hope burned low in every other eye it shone always steadily in his. The rising of the sun and its setting meant to him only another day of hope, another night of hope for her; every concern had pa.s.sed from him except that which was centered in the fight for her life.

Considerate as he was to those about him they feared him, and his instinctive authority made itself felt more keenly in his silence than in his words. The heavy features, the stubborn brow, the slow, steady look became intensified in the long, taciturn vigil. Every day Dolly walked with him and talked with him. She made a bond between him and the world; but she saw how little the world meant when danger came between him and the woman he loved.

One evening the nurses told him that Alice was better. They hoped for a return of consciousness and he sat all night waiting for the precious instant. The next day while he slept, wearied and heartsick, Alice sank. For ten minutes those about her endured a breathless, ageing suspense that sapped their energy and strength, until it was known that the doctor had won the fight and the weary heart had returned to its faint and labored beat. They told Kimberly nothing of it. When he awoke he still thought she was better.

When he came into the room he was so hopeful that he bent over her and fondly called her name. To his consternation and delight her eyes opened at the sound of his voice; it seemed as if she were about to speak.

Then her eyes closed again and she lay still. The incident electrified him and he spoke hopefully of it for hours. At midnight he sent Hamilton away, saying he himself was fresh and would be on duty with the nurse until daylight.

The air was sultry. Toward morning a thunder-storm broke violently.

Kimberly walked out into the hall to throw the belvedere doors open to the fresh air. As he turned to go back, his heart stopped beating. In the gloom of the darkened gallery a slender, white figure came from the open door of the sick-room and Kimberly saw Alice, with outstretched hands, walking uncertainly toward him. He stood quite still and taking her hands gently as they touched his own he murmured her name.

"Alice! What is it, darling?" She opened her eyes. Their vacancy pierced his heart.

"Baby is crying," she faltered; "I hear my baby. Walter." Her hands groped pitifully within his own. "Walter! Let me go to her!"

She tried to go on but Kimberly restrained and held her for a moment trembling in his arms. "Come with me," he said, leading her slowly back to her pillow. "Let us go to her together."

CHAPTER XLI

When the sun burst upon The Towers in the freshness of the morning, Kimberly's eyes wore another expression. The pleading of her words still rang in his ears. The tears in her voice had cost him his courage. Before another night fell they told him but a slender hope remained. He seemed already to have realized it.

After the doctors had spoken and all knew, Annie crept into Kimberly's room. His head was bowed on the table between his arms. With her little wet handkerchief and her worn beads crushed in her hands, she ventured to his side. Her sobs aroused him. "What is it, Annie?"

"Oh, Mr. Kimberly; she is so sick!"

"Yes, Annie."

"Don't you think you should call a priest for her?"

"A priest?" He opened his eyes as if to collect his thoughts.

"Oh, yes, a priest, Mr. Kimberly."

"Go yourself for him, Annie."

Tears were streaming down the maid's cheeks. She held out an ivory crucifix. "If her eyes should open, dear Mr. Kimberly, won't you give this to her? It is her own." Kimberly took the crucifix in silence and as Annie hurried away he buried his head again in his arms.

The timid young clergyman from the village responded within half an hour. Hamilton spoke kindly to him and explained to him Alice's condition; for unless consciousness should return Hamilton knew that nothing could be done.

After trying in vain to speak to her the priest asked leave to wait in an adjoining room. His youthfulness and timidity proved no detriment to his constancy, for he sat hour after hour relieved only by Annie's messages and declining to give up. In the early morning finding there had been no change he left, asking that he be sent for if consciousness should return.

With a strength that the doctors marvelled at, Alice rallied after the bad night. She so held her improvement during the day that Hamilton at nightfall felt she still might live.

While the doctors and the family were at dinner Kimberly was kneeling upstairs beside Alice. She lay with her eyes closed, as she had lain the night she was stricken, but breathing more quietly. The racking pain no longer drew her face. Kimberly softly spoke her name and bent over her.

He kissed her parched lips tenderly and her tired eyes opened. A convulsion shook him. It seemed as if she must know him, but his pleading brought no response.

Then as he looked, the light in her eyes began to fade. With a sudden fear he took her in his arms and called to Annie on the other side of the bed. The nurse ran for Hamilton. Annie with a sob that seemed to pierce Alice's stupor held up the ivory crucifix and the eyes of her dying mistress fixed upon it.

Reason for an instant seemed to a.s.sert itself. Alice, her eyes bent upon the crucifix, and trying to rise, stretched out her hands. Kimberly, transfixed, supported her in his arms. Annie held the pleading symbol nearer and Alice with a heart-rending little cry clutched it convulsively and sank slowly back.

CHAPTER XLII

She died in his arms. In the stillness they heard her name again and again softly spoken, as if he still would summon her from the apathy of death. They saw him, in their sobbing, wait undiscouraged for his answer from the lips that never would answer again.

If he had claimed her in her life he claimed her doubly in her death; now, at least, she was altogether his. He laid her tenderly upon the pillow and covering her hands, still clasping the crucifix, in his own hands he knelt with his face buried in the counterpane.

Day was breaking when he kissed her and rose to his feet. When Dolly went to him in the morning to learn his wishes she found him in his room. Alice was to lie, he said, with the Kimberlys on the hill, in the plot reserved for him. His sister a.s.sented tearfully. As to the funeral, he asked Dolly to confer with the village priest. He directed that only Annie and her own women should make Alice ready for the burial and forbade that any stranger's hand should touch his dead.

She lay in the sunshine, on her pillow, after Annie had dressed her hair, as if breathing. Kimberly went in when Annie came for him. He saw how the touch of the maid's loving hands had made for her dead mistress a counterfeit of sleep; how the calm of the great sleep had already come upon her, and how death, remembering the suffering of her womanhood, had restored to her face its girlish beauty. Hamilton, who was with him, followed him into the room. Kimberly broke the silence.

"What _is_ First Communion, Hamilton?" he asked.

Hamilton shook his head.

"I think," Kimberly said, pausing, "it must be the expression upon her face now."

During the day he hardly spoke. Much of the time he walked in the hall or upon the belvedere and his silence was respected. Those of his household asked one another in turn to talk with him. But even his kindness repelled communication.