Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, December 1878

"No," said Archie. "That was the chapel we looked into. Didn't I say they were just alike?"

"Well, I can easily get up there," she said. "And you may stay down here if you like, and grow sentimental over the ghost of a dinner." And, laughing, she darted up a steep ascent of turf, slackening her pace when she came to a rough heap of fallen stones. Carroll was by her side directly, helping her. "Why, this is prettier than where we went this morning," she said when they reached the top: "you see the whole place better. But it's narrower, I think. This is the west wall, isn't it? Oh, Mr. Carroll, how much the sun has gone down already!"

"I wish I were Moses, or whoever it was, to make it stop," said the boy: "it would stay up there a good long time."

There was a black belt of shadow at the foot of the wall. Archie looked down as if to measure its breadth. A little tuft of green caught his eye, and stooping he pulled it from between the stones.

"Oh, how broken it is here! Doesn't it look as if a giant had taken a great bite out of it?" Sissy exclaimed, at the same moment that he called after her, "Is this right, Miss Langton?"

She turned her head, and for a second's space he saw her bright face, her laughing, parted lips. Then there was a terrible cry, stretched hands at which he snatched instinctively but in vain, and a stone which slipped and fell heavily. He stumbled forward, and recovered himself with an effort. There was blank space before him—and what below?

Archie Carroll half scrambled down by the help of the ivy, half slid, and reached the ground. Thus, at the risk of his life, he gained half a minute, and spent it in kneeling on the grass—a yard away from that which he dared not touch—saying pitifully, "Miss Langton! Oh, won't you speak to me, Miss Langton?"

He was in the shadow, but looking across the enclosure he faced a broken doorway in the south-east corner. The ground sloped away a little, and the arch opened into the stainless blue. A sound of footsteps made Carroll look up, and through the archway came Raymond Fothergill. He had heard the cry, he had outrun the rest, and, even in his blank bewilderment of horror, Archie shrank back scared at his cousin's aspect. His brows and moustache were black as night against the unnatural whiteness of his face, which was like bleached wax. His eyes were terrible. He seemed to reach the spot in an instant. Carroll saw his hands on the stone which had fallen, and lay on her—O God!—or only on her dress?

Fothergill's features contracted in sudden agony as he noted the horribly twisted position in which she lay, but he stooped without a moment's hesitation, and, lifting her gently, laid her on the turf, resting her head upon his knee. There was a strange contrast between the tenderness with which he supported her and the fierce anger of his face. Others of the party came rushing on the scene in dismay and horror.

"Water!" said Fothergill. "Where's Anderson?" (Anderson was the young doctor.) "Not here?"

"He went by the fish-ponds with Evelyn," cried Edith suddenly: "I saw him." Hardwicke darted off.

"Curse him! Playing the fool when he's wanted more than he ever will be again.—Mrs. Latimer!"

Edith rushed away to find her mother.

Some one brought water, and held it while Fothergill, with his disengaged hand, sprinkled the white face on his knee.

Walter Latimer hurried round the corner. He held a pink rosebud, on which his fingers tightened unconsciously as he ran. Coming to the staring group, he stopped aghast. "Good God!" he panted, "what has happened?"

Fothergill dashed more water on the shut eyes and bright hair.

Latimer looked from him to the others standing round: "What has happened?"

A hoarse voice spoke from the background: "She fell." Archie Carroll had risen from his knees, and, lifting one hand above his head, he pointed to the wall. Suddenly, he met Fothergill's eyes, and with a half-smothered cry he flung himself all along upon the grass and hid his face.

"Fothergill! is she much hurt?" cried Latimer. "Is it serious?"

The other did not look up. "I cannot tell," he said, "but I believe she is killed."

Latimer uttered a cry: "No! no! For God's sake don't say that! It can't be!"

Fothergill made no answer.

"It isn't possible!" said Walter. But his glance measured the height of the wall and rested on the stones scattered thickly below. The words died on his lips.

"Is Anderson never coming?" said some one else. Another messenger hurried off. Latimer stood as if rooted to the ground, gazing after him. All at once he noticed the rose which he still held, and jerked it away with a movement as of horror.

The last runner returned: "Anderson and Hardwicke will be here directly: I saw them coming up the path from the fish-ponds. Here is Mrs. Latimer."

Edith ran through the archway first, eager and breathless. "Here is mamma," she said, going straight to Raymond Fothergill with her tidings, and speaking softly as if Sissy were asleep. A little nod was his only answer, and the girl stood gazing with frightened eyes at the drooping head which he supported. Mrs. Latimer, Hardwicke and Anderson all arrived together, and the group divided to make way for them. The first thing to be done was to carry Sissy to the farmhouse, and while they were arranging this Edith felt two hands pressed lightly on her shoulders. She turned and confronted Harry Hardwicke.

"Hush!" he said: "do not disturb them now, but when they have taken her to the house, if you hear anything said, tell them that I have gone for Dr. Grey, and as soon as I have sent him here I shall go on for Mrs. Middleton. You understand?" he added, for the child was looking at him with her scared eyes, and had not spoken.

"Yes," she said, "I will tell them. Oh, Harry! will she die?"

"Not if anything you and I can do will save her—will she, Edith?" and Hardwicke ran off to the stables for his horse. A man was there who saddled it for him, and a rough farm-boy stood by and saw how the gentleman, while he waited, stroked the next one—a lady's horse, a chestnut—and how presently he turned his face away and laid his cheek for a moment against the chestnut's neck. The boy thought it was a rum go, and stood staring vacantly while Hardwicke galloped off on his terrible errand.

Meanwhile, they were carrying Sissy to the house. Fothergill was helping, of course. Latimer had stood by irresolutely, half afraid, yet secretly hoping for a word which would call him. But no one heeded him. Evelyn and Edith had hurried on to see that there was a bed on which she could be laid, and the sad little procession followed them at a short distance. The lookers-on straggled after it, an anxiously-whispering group, and as the last passed through the ruined doorway Archie Carroll lifted his head and glanced round. The wall, with its mosses and ivy, rose darkly above him—too terrible a presence to be faced alone. He sprang up, hurried out of the black belt of shadow and fled across the turf. He never looked back till he stood under the arch, but halting there, within sight of his companions, he clasped a projection with one hand as if he were giddy, and turning his head gazed intently at the crest of the wall. Every broken edge, every tuft of feathery grass, every aspiring ivy-spray, stood sharply out against the sunny blue. The breeze had gone down, and neither blade nor leaf stirred in the hot stillness of the air. There was the way by which they had gone up, there was the ruinous gap which Sissy had said was like a giant's bite. Archie's grasp tightened on the stone as he looked. He might well feel stunned and dizzy, gazing thus across the hideous gulf which parted him from the moment when he stood upon the wall with Sissy Langton laughing by his side. Not till every detail was cruelly stamped upon his brain did he leave the spot.

By that time they had carried Sissy in. Little Lucy had been close by, her rosy face blanched with horror, and had looked appealingly at Latimer as he went past. She wanted a kind word or glance, but the innocent confiding look filled him with remorse and disgust. He would not meet it: he stared straight before him. Lucy was overcome by conflicting emotions, went off into hysterics, and her mother had to be called away from the room where she was helping Mrs. Latimer. Walter felt as if he could have strangled the pretty, foolish child to whom he had been saying sweet things not half an hour before. The rose that he had gathered for her was fastened in her dress, and the pink bud that she had given him lay in its first freshness on the turf in the ruins.

Some of the party waited in the garden. Fothergill stood in the shadow of the porch, silent and a little apart. Archie Carroll came up the path, but no one spoke to him, and he went straight to his cousin. Leaning against the woodwork, he opened his lips to speak, but was obliged to stop and clear his throat, for the words would not come. "How is she?" he said at last.

"I don't know."

"Why do you look at me like that?" said the boy desperately.

Fothergill slightly changed his position, and the light fell more strongly on his face. "I don't ever want to look at you again," he said with quiet emphasis. "You've done mischief enough to last your lifetime if you lived a thousand years."

"It wasn't my fault! Ray, it wasn't!"

"Whose, then?" said Fothergill. "Possibly you think it would have happened if I had been there?"

"They said that wall—" the young fellow began.

"They didn't. No one told you to climb the most ruinous bit of the whole place. And she didn't even know where the refectory was."

Carroll groaned: "Don't, Ray: I can't bear it! I shall kill myself!"

"No, you won't," said Fothergill. "You'll go safe home to your people at the rectory. No more of this."

Archie hesitated, and then miserably dragged himself away. Fothergill retreated a little farther into the porch, and was almost lost in the shadow. No tidings, good or evil, had come from the inner room where Sissy lay, but his state of mind was rather despairing than anxious. From the moment when he ran across the grass and saw her lying, a senseless heap, at the foot of the wall, he had felt assured that she was fatally injured. If he hoped at all it was an unconscious hope—a hope of which he never would be conscious until a cruel certainty killed it.

His dominant feeling was anger. He had cared for this girl—cared for her so much that he had been astonished at himself for so caring—and he felt that this love was the crown of his life. He did not for a moment doubt that he would have won her. He had triumphed in anticipation, but Death had stepped between them and baffled him, and now it was all over. Fothergill was as furious with Death as if it had been a rival who robbed him. He felt himself the sport of a power to which he could offer no resistance, and the sense of helplessness was maddening. But his fury was of the white, intense, close-lipped kind. Though he had flung a bitter word or two at Archie, his quarrel was with Destiny. No matter who had decreed this thing, Raymond Fothergill was in fierce revolt.

And yet, through it all, he knew perfectly well that Sissy's death would hardly make any outward change in him. He was robbed of his best chance, but he did not pretend to himself that his heart was broken or that his life was over. Walter Latimer might fancy that kind of thing, but Fothergill knew that he should be much such a man as he had been before he met her, only somewhat lower, because he had so nearly been something higher and missed it. That was all.

Mrs. Latimer came for a few moments out of the hushed mystery of that inner room. The tidings ran through the expectant groups that Sissy had moved slightly, and had opened her eyes once, but there was little hopefulness in the news. She was terribly injured: that much was certain, but nothing more. Mrs. Latimer wanted her son. "Walter," she said, "you must go home and take the girls. Indeed you must. They cannot stay here, and I cannot send them back without you." Latimer refused, protested, yielded. "Mother," he said, as he turned to go, "you don't know—" His voice suddenly gave way.

"I do know. Oh, my poor boy!" She passed quickly to where Evelyn stood, and told her that Walter had gone to order the horses. "I would rather you were all away before Mrs. Middleton comes," she said: "Henry Hardwicke has gone for her."

This departure was a signal to the rest. The groups melted away, and with sad farewells to one another, and awestruck glances at the windows of the farmhouse, almost all the guests departed. The sound of wheels and horse-hoofs died away in the lanes, and all was very still. The bees hummed busily round the white lilies and the lavender, and on the warm turf of one of the narrow paths lay Archie Carroll.

He had a weight on heart and brain. There had been a moment all blue and sunny, the last of his happy life, when Sissy's laughing face looked back at him and he was a light-hearted-boy. Then had come a moment of horror and incredulous despair, and that black moment had hardened into eternity. Nightmare is hideous, and Archie's very life had become a nightmare. Of course he would get over it, like his cousin, though, unlike his cousin, he did not think so; and their different moods had their different bitternesses. In days to come Carroll would enjoy his life once more, would be ready for a joke or an adventure, would dance the night through, would fall in love. This misery was a swift and terrible entrance into manhood, for he could never be a boy again. And the scar would be left, though the wound would assuredly heal. But Archie, stumbling blindly through that awful pass, never thought that he should come again to the light of day: it was to him as the blackness of a hopeless hell.

CHAPTER L.

THROUGH THE NIGHT

The village-clock struck five. As the last lingering stroke died upon the air there was the sound of a carriage rapidly approaching. Carroll raised his head when it stopped at the gate, and saw Hardwicke spring out and help a lady to alight. She was an old lady, who walked quickly to the house, looking neither to right nor left, and vanished within the doorway. Hardwicke stopped, as if to give some order to the driver, and then hurried after her. Archie stared vaguely, first at them, and then at the man, who turned his horses and went round to the stables. When they were out of sight he laid his head down again. The little scene had been a vivid picture which stamped itself with curious distinctness on his brain, yet failed to convey any meaning whatever. He had not the faintest idea of the agony of love and fear in Mrs. Middleton's heart as she passed him. To Archie, just then, the whole universe was his agony, and there was no room for more.

Ten minutes later came Dr. Grey's brougham. The doctor, as he jumped out, told his man to wait. He went from the gate to the house more hurriedly than Mrs. Middleton, and his anxiety was more marked, but he found time to look round as he went with keen eyes, which rested for an instant on the young sailor, though he lay half hidden by the bushes. He too vanished, as the others had vanished.

About an hour later he came out again, and Fothergill followed him. The doctor started when he encountered his eager eyes. Fothergill demanded his opinion. He began some of the usual speeches in which men wrap up the ghastly word "death" in such disguise that it can hardly be recognized.

The soldier cut him short: "Please to speak plain English, Dr. Grey."

The doctor admitted the very greatest danger.

"Danger—yes," said Fothergill, "but is there any hope? I am not a fool—I sha'n't go in and scare the women: is there any hope?"

The answer was written on the doctor's face. He had known Sissy Langton from the time when she came, a tiny child, to Brackenhill. He shook his head, and murmured something about "even if there were no other injury, the spine—"

Fothergill caught a glimpse of a hideous possibility, and answered with an oath. It was not the profanity of the words, so much as the fury with which they were charged, that horrified the good old doctor. "My dear sir," he remonstrated gently, "we must remember that this is God's will."

"God's will! God's will! Are you sure it isn't the devil's?" said Fothergill. "It seems more like it. If you think it is God's will, you may persuade yourself it's yours, for aught I know. But I'm not such a damned hypocrite as to make believe it's mine."

And with a mechanical politeness, curiously at variance with his face and speech, he lifted his hat to the doctor as he turned back to the farmhouse.

So Sissy's doom was spoken—to linger a few hours, more or less, in helpless pain, and then to die. The sun, which had dawned so joyously, was going down as serenely as it had dawned, but it did not matter much to Sissy now. She was sensible, she knew Mrs. Middleton. When the old lady stooped over her she looked up, smiled faintly and said, "I fell."

"Yes, my darling, I know," Aunt Harriet said.

"Can I go home?" Sissy asked after a pause.

"No, dear, you must not think of it: you mustn't ask to go home."

"I thought not," said Sissy.

Mrs. Middleton asked her if she felt much pain.

"I don't know," she said, and closed her eyes.

Later, Henry Hardwicke sent in a message, and the old lady came out to speak to him. He was standing by an open casement in the passage, looking out at the sunset through the orchard boughs. "What is it, Harry?" she said.

He started and turned round: "I beg your pardon, Mrs. Middleton, but I thought in case you wanted to send any telegrams—if—if—I mean I thought you might want to send some, and there is not very much time."

She put her hand to her head. "I ought to, oughtn't I?" she said. "Who should be sent for?"

"Mr. Hammond?" Hardwicke questioned doubtfully.

Something like relief or pleasure lighted her sad eyes: "Yes, yes! send for Godfrey Hammond. He will come." She was about to leave him, but the young fellow stepped forward: "Mrs. Middleton"—was it the clear red light from the window that suddenly flushed his face?—"Mrs. Middleton, shall I send for Mr. Percival Thorne?"

She stopped, looking strangely at him: something in his voice surprised her. "For Percival?" she said.

"May I? I think he ought to come." The hot color was burning on his cheeks. What right had he to betray the secret which he believed he had discovered? And yet could he stand by and not speak for her when she had so little time in which to speak for herself?

"Is it for his sake," said Mrs. Middleton, "or is it that you think—? Well, let it be so: send for Percival. Yes," she added, "perhaps I have misunderstood. Yes, send at once for Percival."

"I'll go," said Harry, hurrying down the passage. "The message shall be sent off at once. I'll take it to Fordborough."

"Must you go yourself?" Mrs. Middleton raised her voice a little as he moved away.

"No: let me go," said Captain Fothergill, turning the farther corner: "I am going to Fordborough. What is it? I will take it. Mrs. Middleton, you will let me be your messenger?"

"You are very good," she said.—"Harry, you will write—I can't. Oh, I must go back." And she vanished, leaving the two men face to face.

"I've no telegraph-forms," said Harry after a pause. "If you would take the paper to my father, he will send the messages."

Fothergill nodded silently, and went out to make ready for his journey. Hardwicke followed him, and stood in the porch pencilling on the back of an old letter. When Fothergill had given his orders he walked up to Carroll, touched the lad's shoulder with the tips of his fingers, and stood away. "Come," he said.

Archie raised himself from the ground and stumbled to his feet: "Come? where?"

"To Fordborough."

The boy started and stepped back. He looked at the farmhouse, he looked at his cousin. "I'll come afterward," he faltered.

"Nonsense!" said Fothergill. "I'm going now, and of course you go with me."

Archie shrank away, keeping his eyes fixed, as if in a kind of fascination, on his cousin's terrible eyes. The idea of going back alone with Raymond was awful to him. "No, I can't come, Ray—indeed I can't," he said. "I'll walk: I'd much rather—I would indeed."

"What for?" said Fothergill. "You are doing no good here. Do you know I have a message to take? I can't be kept waiting. Don't be a fool," he said in a lower but not less imperative voice.

Archie glanced despairingly round. Hardwicke came forward with the paper in his outstretched hand: "Leave him here, Captain Fothergill. I dare say I shall go to the inn in the village, and he may go with me. He can take you the earliest news to-morrow morning."

Archie looked breathlessly from one to the other. "As you please," said Fothergill, and strode off without another word.

The boy tried to say something in the way of thanks. "Oh, it's nothing," Hardwicke replied. "You won't care what sort of quarters they may turn out to be, I know." And he went back to the house with a little shrug of his shoulders at the idea of having young Carroll tied to him in this fashion. He did not want the boy, but Hardwicke could never help sacrificing himself.

So Archie went to the gate and watched his cousin ride away, a slim black figure on his black horse against the burning sky. Fothergill never turned his head. Where was the use of looking back? He was intent only on his errand, and when that piece of paper should have been delivered into Mr. Hardwicke's hands the last link between Sissy Langton and himself would be broken. There would be no further service to render. Fothergill did not know that the message he carried was to summon his rival, but it would have made no difference in his feelings if he had. Nothing made any difference now.

Mrs. Middleton sat by Sissy's bedside in the clear evening light. Harry Hardwicke's words haunted her: why did he think that Sissy wanted Percival? They had parted a year ago, and she had believed that Sissy was cured of her liking for him. It was Sissy who had sent him away, and she had been brighter and gayer of late: indeed, Mrs. Middleton had fancied that Walter Latimer— Well, that was over, but if Sissy cared for Percival—

A pair of widely-opened eyes were fixed on her: "Am I going to die, Aunt Harriet?"

"I hope not. Oh, my darling, I pray that you may live."

"I think I am going to die. Will it be very soon? Would there be time to send—"

"We will send for anything or any one you want. Do you feel worse, dear? Time to send for whom?"

"For Percival."

"Harry Hardwicke has sent for him already. Perhaps he has the message by now: it is an hour and a half since the messenger went."

"When will he come?"

"To-morrow, darling."

There was a pause. Then the faint voice came again: "What time?"

Mrs. Middleton went to the door and called softly to Hardwicke. He had been looking in Bradshaw, and she returned directly: "Percival will come by the express to-night. He will be at Fordborough by the quarter-past nine train, and Harry will meet him and bring him over at once—by ten o'clock, he says, or a few minutes later."

Sissy's brows contracted for a moment: she was calculating the time. "What is it now?" she said.

"Twenty minutes to eight."

Fourteen hours and a half! The whole night between herself and Percival! The darkness must come and must go, the sun must set and must again be high in the heavens, before he could stand by her side. It seemed to Sissy as if she were going down into the blackness of an awful gulf, where Death was waiting for her. Would she have strength to escape him, to toil up the farther side, and to reach the far-off to-morrow and Percival? "Aunt Harriet," she said, "shall I live till then? I want to speak to him."

"Yes, my darling—indeed you will. Don't talk so: you will break my heart. Perhaps God will spare you."

"No," said Sissy—"no."

Between eight and nine Hardwicke was summoned again. Mrs. Latimer wanted some one to go to Latimer's Court, to take the latest news and to say that it was impossible she could return that night. "You see they went away before Dr. Grey came," she said. "I have written a little note. Can you find me a messenger?"

"I will either find one or I will go myself," he replied.

"Oh, I didn't mean to trouble you. And wait a moment, for Mrs. Middleton wants him to go on to her house. She will come and speak to you when I go back to the poor girl."