"Everything seems to make me weep to-night. You may not be back until--until the worst is over. Oh! if she might but be saved!"

He held her face close to him, gazing down at it in the moonlight. And then he took from it his farewell kiss. "G.o.d bless you, my darling, for ever and for ever!"

"May He bless you, Thomas!" she answered, with streaming eyes: and, for the first time in her life, his kiss was returned. Then they parted. He watched Ethel indoors, and went back to Prior's Ash.

CHAPTER XII.

DEAD.

"Thomas, my son, I must go home. I don't want to die away from Ashlydyat!"

A dull pain shot across Thomas G.o.dolphin's heart at the words. Did he think of the old superst.i.tious tradition--that evil was to fall upon the G.o.dolphins when their chief should die, and not at Ashlydyat? At Ashlydyat his father could not die; he had put that out of his power when he let it to strangers: in its neighbourhood, he might.

"The better plan, sir, will be for you to return to the Folly, as you seem to wish it," said Thomas. "You will soon be strong enough to undertake the journey."

The decaying knight was sitting on a sofa in his bedroom. His second fainting-fit had lasted some hours--if that, indeed, was the right name to give to it--and he had recovered, only to be more and more weak. He had grown pretty well after the first attack--when Margery had found him in his chamber on the floor, the day Lady G.o.dolphin had gone to pay her visit to Selina. The next time, he was on the lawn before the house, talking to Charlotte Pain, when he suddenly fell to the ground. He did not recover his consciousness until evening; and nearly the first wish he expressed was a desire to see his son Thomas. "Telegraph for him," he said to Lady G.o.dolphin.

"But you are not seriously ill, Sir George," she had answered.

"No; but I should like him here. Telegraph to him to start by first train."

And Lady G.o.dolphin did so, accordingly, sending the message that angered Miss G.o.dolphin. But, in this case, Lady G.o.dolphin did not deserve so much blame as Janet cast on her: for she did debate the point with herself whether she should say Sir George was ill, or not. Believing that these two fainting-fits had proceeded from want of strength only, that they were but the effect of his long previous illness, and would lead to no bad result, she determined not to speak of it. Hence the imperfect message.

Neither did Thomas G.o.dolphin see much cause for fear when he arrived at Broomhead. Sir George did not look better than when he had left Prior's Ash, but neither did he look much worse. On this, the second day, he had been well enough to converse with Thomas upon business affairs: and, that over, he suddenly broke out with the above wish. Thomas mentioned it when he joined Lady G.o.dolphin afterwards. It did not meet with her approbation.

"You should have opposed it," said she to him in a firm, hard tone.

"But why so, madam?" asked Thomas. "If my father's wish is to return to Prior's Ash, he should return."

"Not while the fever lingers there. Were he to take it--and die--you would never forgive yourself."

Thomas had no fear of the fever on his own score, and did not fear it for his father. He intimated as much. "It is not the fever that will hurt him, Lady G.o.dolphin."

"You have no right to say that. Lady Sarah Grame, a month ago, might have said she did not fear it for Sarah Anne. And now Sarah Anne is dying!"

"Or dead," put in Charlotte Pain, who was leaning listlessly against the window frame devoured with ennui.

"Shall you be afraid to go back to Prior's Ash?" he asked of Maria Hastings.

"Not at all," replied Maria. "I should not mind if I were going to-day, as far as the fever is concerned."

"That is well," he said. "Because I have orders to convey you back with me."

Charlotte Pain lifted her head with a start. The news aroused her.

Maria, on the contrary, thought he was speaking in jest.

"No, indeed I am not," said Thomas G.o.dolphin. "Mr. Hastings made a request to me, madam, that I should take charge of his daughter when I returned," continued he to Lady G.o.dolphin. "He wants her at home, he says."

"Mr. Hastings is very polite!" ironically replied my lady. "Maria will go back when I choose to spare her."

"I hope you will allow her to return with me--unless you shall soon be returning yourself," said Thomas G.o.dolphin.

"It is not I that shall be returning to Prior's Ash yet," said my lady.

"The sickly old place must give proof of renewed health first. You will not see either me or Sir George there on this side Christmas."

"Then I think, Lady G.o.dolphin, you must offer no objection to my taking charge of Maria," said Thomas courteously, but firmly, leaving the discussion of Sir George's return to another opportunity. "I pa.s.sed my word to Mr. Hastings."

Charlotte Pain, all animation now, approached Lady G.o.dolphin. She was thoroughly sick and tired of Broomhead: since George G.o.dolphin's departure, she had been projecting how she could get away from it. Here was a solution to her difficulty.

"Dear Lady G.o.dolphin, you must allow me to depart with Mr.

G.o.dolphin--whatever you may do with Maria Hastings," she exclaimed. "I said nothing to you--for I really did not see how I was to get back, knowing you would not permit me to travel so far alone--but Mrs. Verrall is very urgent for my return. And now that she is suffering from this burn, as Mr. G.o.dolphin has brought us news, it is the more inc.u.mbent upon me to be at home."

Which was a nice little fib of Miss Charlotte's. Her sister had never once hinted that she wished her home again; but a fib or two more or less was nothing to Charlotte.

"You are tired of Broomhead," said Lady G.o.dolphin.

Charlotte's colour never varied, her eye never drooped, as she protested that she should not tire of Broomhead were she its inmate for a twelvemonth; that it was quite a paradise upon earth. Maria kept her head bent while Charlotte said it, half afraid lest unscrupulous Charlotte should call upon her to bear testimony to her truth. Only that very morning she had protested to Maria that the ennui of the place was killing her.

"I don't know," said Lady G.o.dolphin shrewdly. "Unless I am wrong, Charlotte, you have been anxious to leave. What was it that Mr. George hinted at--about escorting you young ladies home--and I stopped him ere it was half spoken? Prior's Ash _would_ talk if I sent you home under his convoy."

"Mr. G.o.dolphin is not George," rejoined Charlotte.

"No, he is not," replied my lady significantly.

The subject of departure was settled amicably; both the young ladies were to return to Prior's Ash under the charge of Mr. G.o.dolphin. There are some men, single men though they be, and not men in years, whom society is content to recognize as entirely fit escorts. Thomas G.o.dolphin was one of them. Had my lady despatched the young ladies home under Mr. George's wing, she might never have heard the last of it from Prior's Ash: but the most inveterate scandalmonger in it would not have questioned the trustworthiness of his elder brother. My lady was also brought to give her consent to her own departure for it by Christmas, provided Mr. Snow would a.s.sure her that the place was "safe."

In a day or two Thomas G.o.dolphin spoke to his father of his marriage arrangements. He had received a letter from Janet, written the morning after his departure, in which she agreed to the proposal that Ethel should be her temporary guest. This removed all barrier to the immediate union.

"Then you marry directly, if Sarah Anne lives?"

"Directly. In January, at the latest."

"G.o.d bless you both!" cried the old knight. "She'll be a wife in a thousand, Thomas."

Thomas thought she would. He did not say it.

"It's the best plan; it's the best plan," continued Sir George in a dreamy tone, gazing into the fire. "No use to turn the girls out of their home. It will not be for long; not for long. Thomas"--turning his haggard, but still fine blue eye upon his son--"I wish I had never left Ashlydyat!"

Thomas was silent. None had more bitterly regretted the departure from it than he.

"I wish I could go back to it to die!"

"My dear father, I hope that you will yet live many years to bless us.

If you can get through this winter--and I see no reason whatever why you should not, with care--you may regain your strength and be as well again as any of us."