Page:The Yellow Book - 03.djvu/225

 no good. There was the doctor, and that old woman who nursed him—they would see to everything Poor, poor Alec—alone in that grey-walled cottage, pitched at the far end of this long, bleak valley—the half-darkened room—his wasted, feverish face—and his knowing that he could not live—it all came back to her vividly, and she shivered as if with cold. Death seemed hideous, awful, almost wicked in the cruelty of its ruthlessness. And the homeward drive loomed ahead, interminably—for two hours she would have to wait with the dreadful, flaring remembrance of it all—two hours—for the horse was tired, and it was thirteen miles, a man by the roadside had told her

He was noble-hearted, saint-like Her pity for him welled up once more, and she convinced herself that she could have loved him, worshipped him, been worthy of him as a husband—and now he lay dying. He had revealed his whole nature to her, it seemed. No one had ever understood, as she did now, what a fine character he was in reality. Her cheeks grew hot with indignation and shame, as she remembered how she had heard people laugh at him behind his back, refer to him mockingly as the 'love-sick curate.' And all this while—for five whole years—he had gone on caring for her—thinking of her each day, reading her letters, recalling the things she used to say—yes, those were his very words. Before, she had never suspected that it was in his nature to take it so horribly tragically; yet, somehow, directly he had fixed his eyes on her in that excited way, she had half-guessed it

The horse's trot slackened to a walk, and the wheels crunched over a bed of newly-strewn stones. . . She was considering how much of what had happened she could relate to Jim. Oh! the awfulness of his knowing beforehand like that! She had kissed him: she had told him that she cared for him: she hadn't