THE END
Why do we women like to tease the men we love? Is the sense of coquetry innate and irresistible in some of us? Or is it merely a defensive instinct warning us of the danger of being won too easily?
I knew quite well how the interview with Karl would end; I knew he loved me and that I loved him; I was hungry for the feel of his arms about me and the touch of his lips on mine; and yet my face wore a quite aggrieved look as I met him with words of somewhat petulant reproach on my lips.
"I am glad you were able to go with the Duke," I said.
He gave a start at my tone and then laughed. "It was very fortunate. I am glad that—you are glad, Christabel."
"I am afraid you must have found it inconvenient to leave him so soon."
"Are you?"
"Had you not better hurry back to him?"
"Yes. I am going straight back from here."
"Don't let me keep you, pray."
"Very well."
What can you do with a man who refuses in this way to be teased, but just accepts what you say with preposterous good humour? I shrugged my shoulders. "Why don't you go then?"
"That is exactly it. Why? Of course you can't guess such an abstruse problem! It's altogether beyond you; but try. I should like to hear you making a number of ingeniously wrong guesses. Now, what reason can I possibly have for being here?"
"It is not worth the trouble."
"Well, then, try the obvious. That won't be much trouble."
"You wish to know the latest news of Gareth, you mean, to take to the Duke."
"That's not the obvious, Christabel; that's only an ingeniously wrong one. I'm afraid I've disappointed you a little."
"In coming away from the Duke so—soon?"
"Not a bit of it. In not letting you tease me just now. I ought to have taken you seriously and fired up, and all the rest of it. But I didn't. I didn't misunderstand you in the least. You see—but shall I tell you why?" and he came close to me.
"You did go away with the Duke," I persisted; rather feebly, I fear.
"And who would have been the first to blame me if I had not, when he was ill and could not go alone? You see you can't plague me because, for one thing, I know you too well; and for another—I've had a chat with the General. Didn't he tell you I was—a rebel?"
"I always understood you had no sympathy with patriots," I answered, looking up innocently, but prepared for defeat and surrender.
"It won't do, Christabel," he laughed. "You're looking too innocent. The General gave you away, I mean, and you know that I mean I am a rebel against my father's latest act of tyranny."
He paused; but somehow I couldn't meet his eyes. I tried, and at my failure he was very tactful. He seemed to guess that it would have hurt me, if he had laughed then. Instead of laughing he took my hand.
"I am not going to give you up, Christabel, just because the Duke is unreasonably angry. Not all the dukes and princes in the empire shall make me do that. We may perhaps, have to wait a little longer yet; but even that's for you to decide. You see, I'm so sure of you, dear. There's where it is."
"I would not come between you two," I whispered.
"Nor shall he come between us two. I was only a shiftless sort of ne'er-do-well till you came here and helped me to be strong again. I was going down the hill full speed with no brakes on; and, as you know, I didn't care. But I care now and have a will again—as you'll find out if you try to cross me in this; and having found my right mind again I made it up. You mean to side with the—rebel, don't you?"
He proved that he had a will then; for without giving me time to reply, he just put his arm about me and made me kiss him on the lips. And after that, what was the use of protesting, even if I had the wish? But I hadn't. At the touch of his lips, the Duke and his opposition and his dislike of me, and everything else in the world was blotted out, save only—my love for Karl and his for me.
*****
I wish that this story of the chapter of my life could end with that pledge-kiss of ours; and that I could say all ended as happily for others as for Karl and myself. But I cannot.
I had done my utmost to gather happiness for Gareth from the seeds of trouble which her loving but thoughtless hands had sown so innocently.
The deception I had contrived and had caused her father and husband to continue was successful in its first object. They did their part well in the short strange interview by her bedside; and when the doctor called them away, she was entirely happy, holding a hand of each of them in hers in perfect belief in their reconciliation.
The doctor told me that the risk of brain fever which he had seen was at an end, and that she would soon recover her strength, unless that occurred which was in all our thoughts.
And it did occur.
A crisis came in the night. I was dozing by her bedside, for she had fallen asleep, when her cries of pain roused me. I called Mrs. Perry, the doctor was summoned at once; and everything that his skill and our care could do for her was done. But there was no doubt of her imminent danger now.
In the grey of the dawn the life, which was yet never full life, came only to be snatched away instantly by the remorseless Reaper, who lingered by the bedside as if to garner with one sweep of the sickle the mother as well as the child.
Fearing the end I sent news at once to the Duke, to Count Gustav, and to Colonel Katona. Both the latter came hurrying to the house; but by the time they arrived, the doctor was able to announce a respite. There was danger, grave danger, but just a faint hope that all might yet be well.
Long, anxious, wearing hours followed while we watched the flame of life flicker up and down as she lay, white as wax and death's very counterfeit for stillness.
More than once I thought she had passed; and held the mirror to her mouth to catch just the faintest dew of breath.
Both Gustav and her father came up to see her, creeping into the room to gaze and sigh, and turn away despairing.
She knew none of us; but just lay as though she had done with all the matters of earth: hovering on the edge of the thinnest line that can part death from life.
The two men stayed in the house: nursing I know not what angry thoughts each of the other; but both afraid to leave lest the moment of consciousness should come to her and find them absent.
I scarcely spoke to either of them, except to carry a brief message of her condition. If Gustav had brought this all about by his selfishness, it had been the Colonel who had made matters so desperately worse by his ill-timed harsh looks and words on the preceding day. And toward both I felt too hardly on her account to do other than leave them to the bitterness of their belated, unavailing remorse.
That both suffered acutely I could tell by their looks when I carried my brief news. But pity for them I could not feel. It was all absorbed by the gentle girl whom between them they had brought to the threshold of the grim portal.
All through the hours of that long autumn day, the coma continued, until the doctor confessed his fear that she would pass away without even a minute's lapse into consciousness.
"If she should be conscious may I bring them to her?" I asked him when he was going away at nightfall.
"There is risk either way; but if she asks for them, bring them—for a minute only, however."
"There is no hope?
"If she lives through the night—yes; but..." and he shook his head very gravely.
In the evening the last solemn pathetic offices of the Church were solemnized; and through it all she remained unconscious—mercifully, as it seemed to me, since it would have roused her to the knowledge that she was dying.
I went back to my chair by the bed with a heart full of foreboding. I recalled the General's words—so sadly prophetic—"Whom the gods love, die young." The saying had galled me as he quoted it; but it did so no longer.
She looked so frail and fragile in her sickness; a tender floweret so utterly unable to bear up against the rough cross winds of anger and strife which, held in restraint only by her weakness, would assuredly burst forth to blight her life, that one could only feel with sad resignation that the dark verdict was the best for her happiness.
And yet so loving and passing sweet she was that with resignation to the will of Heaven was an irresistible, almost passionate, regret that she should go.
Hours passed with that solemn slowness one knows in a sick room. The time was broken by my errands to the two watchers below stairs, to whom I carried news of her condition. More than once during the night Karl came also, as he had come frequently during the day, sent by the Duke in his anxiety for tidings of Gareth.
It was some time past midnight when I noticed a change. She took the nourishment I gave her, and when I laid her back on the pillow, she sighed and made an effort to open her eyes.
I took her hand and held it and, after some time, I felt a slight pressure of her fingers upon mine.
"Gareth, dearest," I whispered.
At first there was no response; but when I called her again, the pressure of the fingers was distinct; and a little later she opened her eyes and looked at me.
That was all then, and she was so still afterwards, that I thought she was once more unconscious. She was not, however; and presently her eyes opened again and her lips moved.
I bent down over her, and caught the faintly whispered words:
"Am I dying?"
"No, dearest, no. You will soon be strong again."
She looked at me, and tried, I think, to smile.
"Poor Karl." Just a soft, sighing whisper, and she was silent.
"He is here, dearest. Would you like to see him?"
She made no reply, but I told Mrs. Perry to bring both Gustav and the Colonel to the door of the room. Then I went back and gave her some stimulant, as the doctor had told me.
It lent her a measure of strength.
"Karl is here, Gareth, and your father—shall I bring them?"
"Yes—both."
I went to the door and opened it, and they crept across the room to the bedside. Gustav knelt down on one side and took her hand and pressed his lips to it. The Colonel stood on the other side; and I lifted her other hand from beneath the bed clothes and laid it where her father could hold it.
She thanked me with a look, and whispered: "Kiss me, Christabel."
I bent and kissed her; and the tears were standing thick in my eyes as I drew away.
"Father!"
Just the word and the look of entreaty; and he stooped down and kissed her too.
Her eyes lingered on him a moment, and then she turned her face slowly round to Gustav, whose head was still bowed over the hand he held:
"Husband!"
He did not catch the faint whisper; and I touched him on the shoulder. He started up to find her eyes on him, and then understood; and he too kissed her. She kept her eyes on him; and he kissed her again.
"My darling wife," he murmured.
She looked at him intently.
"I am so sorry, Karl."
It was her last word. The flickering remnant of her strength was spent in a smile of love to him; and as it died slowly from her face, she closed her eyes, and her spirit passed into eternal peace.
As soon as I realized that she was gone, I whispered to Mrs. Perry and hurried out of the room, to find Karl there. He had come for news. He read it in my face and by the tears in my eyes, as he put his arm about me and led me away.
THE END
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