CHAPTER XLI
DARK DAYS
"If I only knew!" That was Echo's mental cry in the long days that followed Chilly's burial. "If I only knew whether Harry cared for me any longer!" Sharp as was her grief for her brother, this pang was the sharper, and it did not dull with time.
After the meeting in the corridor of the Convention Hall, when the barrier had risen, so icily cold, between them, she had been unable to blame him. The very depth of his hurt and resentment only showed her how much he had once cared, and she had longed fiercely for an opportunity of speech with him, which, it seemed to her, must set all right. This opportunity she had discerned in Brent's invitation to the theatre, since he had let fall that he had asked Harry also. She had known the character of the play to be presented and otherwise would have shrunk from the painful memories it must evoke, even though her personal dread had been exercised by the escape from prison of the convict from whose plight had come her own pain of conscience. But the possibility of Harry's presence had outweighed other considerations. In that moment in the box, when his lips had spoken her name, when she had felt his hand tremble against her arm, the ice had seemed about to melt in understanding. For an instant her heart had leaped up with glad certainty, only to drop to anguished slowness again at his sudden stricken silence.
"If I only knew!" Through the months of the early summer the question sat incarnate by Echo's side. By night and by day it never left her. She had no confidant, could have none. From this trouble her father himself was barred. It was some relief that she had no longer to wear a smiling motley, but could give her grief free rein, and there were times when she wept till the very fount of her tears seemed to be exhausted—when it seemed to her that all her life was darkened and her love lay stark with its death-tapers licking the gloom.
As time wore on, and her father threw himself again into the work of the political campaign, she was mentally more alone than ever. There were few of those old hours when she had been used to sit with him in the dusky library; for this room had become, gradually, the habitual meeting-place of the leaders, the clearing-house of county news, the forum in which were discussed and decided the varying policies of the struggle. Occasionally Harry took part in these gatherings—not often, for he was now away during long periods, speaking in various parts of the state. By the newspapers Echo followed his every step. He made no speech that she did not read with eagerness and pride. She knew that he was making a whirlwind campaign that had steadily increased in vigour and effect as the day of election drew nearer, and that, however the issues might fall, he was stamping his individuality deeply upon a wide community. She thrilled with the thought of his success, and in the unselfishness of her love, this was some recompense.
She found a kind of comfort, too, in the realisation that the relations of her father and mother had subtly altered. In her whole life she had never witnessed the smallest discourtesy of word or deed between them, yet there was now a positive element in their intercourse which she had never distinguished. Often now they sat together as the Judge wrote or scanned his reports, sometimes he discussed with his wife the phases of the political situation and once—with what Echo realised afterward was almost a guilty start—she had come upon them sitting in the lamplight hand in hand. She had turned away to discover that her eyes had unaccountably filled with tears.
Most of all that sustained her spirits in this period were her talks with Brent. Trained newspaperman and observer as he was, he had thrown himself into the battle with all ardour. Day after day, in trenchant editorials, he preached the Gospel of the new party, and many times he swung his long legs down the Avenue for a cup of tea at Midfields. His admiration for the fight Harry was making was immense and he found in Echo a perfect listener, sympathetic and comprehending.
And so the months passed till there remained but a fortnight before election day, and so deeply had Echo's imagination entered into the great issue, so intimately were all her thoughts engaged with Harry's tangible success, that even the dread of Craig's recovery, even the pain and puzzle of her heart, were thrust into the background.
That evening she sat at the piano in the drawing-room, her fingers wandering in long dreamy arpeggios, when her maid brought her a letter. It was from Nancy Eveland. She opened and read it through, to the postscript on the last page:
"The evening papers have a telegram from Buda-Pesth about Mr. Craig. He left the hospital there yesterday. The operation was completely successful."
She sat for some minutes with the paper held tight in her hand, with a weird feeling that it was a warning, and when she tried again to play her fingers stumbled into discord.
It was long before she slept that night, and then the fear swooped upon her in her dreaming. She thought it was her wedding-day and that she was pacing up a church aisle, over rose-leaves red as blood strewn with seed-pearls that had been her tears. Turned toward her were the faces of her father and mother, of Chilly and of a myriad friends, who filled every pew. At the altar Harry was standing waiting for her. But every countenance wore a look of astonishment and trepidation, and she knew that it was because the gown she was wearing was not white but black, and her bride's veil of black crêpe. This, however, had been necessary because she had wished that Craig would die, and the wish had somehow brought his death about. She thought she tried to explain this, in a whisper, to Harry, but he shrank from her. She turned to the rector, who had been ready, but as she looked at him, he took off his surplice and dashed it on the floor, and she saw that he was really Craig himself. Then the organ crashed and lights flared up about her and Harry vanished and all that was left was Craig's face, sneering at her, with a red blotch on his temple.
She awoke in the darkness with a start, trembling in every limb—to hear a lone hound howling from the stable.