"I WILL NEVER LEAVE HIM, SO HELP ME GOD IN HEAVEN."
"Natalie." He stirred uneasily, muttering the word, which since her coming he had not uttered; then, as she lightly pressed the hand she held, he slept again. So she had sat for hours beside his bed.
The physician had prepared her for the sight that had met her eyes. From Tabitha, who was with her, he had gleaned some knowledge of the facts. Tabitha, still ignorant of the granting of the decree, had assured him that the visitor was the wife of Leonard Claghorn.
"Poor woman, she will need her courage," he said. "The other one has gone. As for the wife, if she can bear it, I would have her sit beside him so that he can see her when he wakes."
So there she had taken her place, beside the man whom the law had decreed was no more to her than any other. But death mocks law. Dying, he was so much to her that no hand but hers should smooth his pillow.
Perhaps the nature of the disease, perhaps the deep exhaustion, had made a great change in his appearance. The bloated aspect of his face was gone, and even a greater beauty than the beauty of his youth and innocence was apparent. But it was the beauty of ruin. The face was marble, yet lined with the deep furrows of sorrow and remorse. The hair was gray at the temples, the cheeks were hollow and the mouth was drawn. It was Leonard, the man whose head had lain upon her bosom, the father of her child—the same, yet oh, how changed!
"Natalie!"
She bent toward him. He essayed to lift her hand to his lips; she placed it on his brow.
"I have had a dream," he whispered, "a dreadful dream!"
"Hush, Leonard. You must sleep."
He feebly raised his arm and tried to draw her to him. Slowly she bent toward him, falling on her knees beside the bed. His arm was now about her neck; he drew her cheek to his.
"My wife!" He uttered the words with a long-drawn sigh, of such sweet content that in that sigh she believed he had breathed his life out. Soon he spoke again. "Now I can sleep," he said, and freed her from his embrace. She rose gently and stood watching him; he slept without the stertorous breathing of before. Looking up, she saw the physician in the doorway. He beckoned to her. She rose and quietly left the room.
"Madam," said the doctor, "this is wonderful. That natural sleep may portend recovery."
"Then I can go," she said.
The doctor looked at her gravely, not approvingly. But it was not as he supposed; she was not hard-hearted; but the woman! Leonard had written that his conscience and his honor demanded that he marry the woman. If he were to live, there was no place at his bedside for her, who had once been his wife.
"Mrs. Claghorn," said the doctor, "your companion, Miss—ah—Miss Cone, has informed me of the existing relations between you and your husband. As a stranger I can give no advice, can only tell you that the woman who has been his companion has left your husband forever."
"Left him to die!" she exclaimed.
"Precisely. It need not surprise you. It is barbarous; but such women are barbarous. I shall be surprised if one who has displayed so much magnanimity should fail now. Pardon me, Mrs. Claghorn, but your place is by your husband's side. One woman has basely left him to die. Should you leave him now, you repeat the act."
The doctor silently withdrew. Natalie sank into a chair. Her mind was confused. Her place by her husband's side! Had she then a husband? The scenes in which she had been an actor had numbed her faculties, strained by the long watch by the bedside she had left. A feeling of suffocation was stealing over her; instinctively she loosened her dress at the throat. The letter she had written to Mark fell upon the floor, and she sat staring at it, dumb.
It became evident that her husband, as all in the house believed him to be, would live. Over and over again the doctor congratulated her on the wonderful influence of her presence upon the sick man. Naturally, he was glad to have rescued a patient from the very jaws of death; and though, since he had learned more of her history from Tabitha Cone, he had slight sympathy for the man, yet he believed that even under the untoward circumstances existing, forgiveness and reconciliation was the course which promised most for future happiness.
"It is the best thing for her," he said to Tabitha. "She will withdraw the divorce proceedings and forgive him. She can never be happy unless she does."
Tabitha, though sure that she herself would never have forgiven her mariner under similar circumstances, which, however, she admitted were unthinkable in that connection, agreed with the physician.
"He will be long in getting well," said the physician; "if, indeed, he ever recovers completely. If he has the heart of a man he must appreciate what she has done for him; literally brought him back to life."
"He was a good man, once," observed Tabitha, her eyes filling. "Oh, Doctor! The most beautiful, the sweetest; the most frank and loving boy——"
"And a brilliant theologian, you tell me. Well, well, Miss Cone, in my profession we learn charity. It is astounding what an evil influence some women can gain over men. And this one was not even beautiful."
"The hussy!"
"Quite so. Ah, Miss Cone, our sex must ever be on guard," and the doctor laughed a little. He was feeling triumphant over the recovery of his patient.
Yet in watching that recovery his face was often very grave. Natalie was sharp-eyed. "Is your patient getting well?" she asked.
"He improves hourly," was the answer, but the tone was not cheerful. He looked at Natalie anxiously.
"Physically, yes. His mind, Doctor?"
"His mental faculties are failing fast."
"How long has this been going on?" He was surprised at her equable tones. Evidently she had nerved herself for this disclosure.
"A brave woman," he thought.
"That is a hard question to answer."
"Do you think it the result of drink? He had never touched liquor two years since."
"I should hardly ascribe it to liquor entirely. Doubtless, over-indulgence of that nature has been a force, a great force. The delirium in which you found him may be directly ascribed to drink."
"If he had been greatly harassed, say two years since, having been up to that time a good man—if then he had suddenly fallen into evil—would you ascribe such a fall to the mental strain consequent upon the worry I have suggested?"
"She seeks every palliation for him," thought the doctor. "Madam, I should say that in the case of a man, such as you have pictured, a sudden lapse into evil courses, courses which belied his training and previous life——"
"Yes?" She was looking steadfastly at him. He little knew the resolve that hung upon his words.
"I should say he was not wholly responsible. I should attribute much to the worry, the vexations, to which you have alluded."
With all her firmness she shrank as from a blow. Thinking to comfort her, he had driven a knife into her heart.
"And now, my dear Mrs. Claghorn, since we are upon this subject—a subject from which I admit I have shrunk—let me tender you some advice. You have saved your husband's life; let that be your solace. It will not be for his happiness that you sacrifice your own."
"Go on," she said, seeing that he hesitated.
"After awhile—not now," he said, "but after your presence is less necessary to him, you must let me aid you to place him in an establishment where he will have every care——"
"An asylum?"
The doctor nodded.
"I will never leave him, so help me God in heaven! Never, never, Mark, my darling, for I, and only I, brought him to this pass!" She cried these words aloud, her hand upraised to heaven.