She herself was perfectly radiant. For hours she sat beside Grace, chatting of the present and the future. She gave quiet humorous little pictures of incidents at Meerut, Yaseen Khan's importance, and their father's youthful vigour. She would even relate stories of scenes between herself and Bertie, blushing in the prettiest way as she repeated some of his silly speeches. She went back over the far past when they were all children together, raking up funny old stories of their nursery and schoolgirl days. She organised excursions to the city, Grace in a palki, and she and Kit riding beside her. For more than a week she was her sister's only physician, and even the doctor, who had looked grave at first, began at last to think that the new treatment was more successful than the old.
All sorts of rumours were in the meantime pouring in, and mostly of the vengeance that was overtaking the rebels. From the neighbourhood of Gumilcund, from Cawnpore, and, above all, from Delhi, came tales of wholesale executions, of indiscriminate slaughter, of men blown from guns in battalions, of dispossessed peasants and citizens dying in their multitudes from famine. The ladies heard all these things at the Residency, where there was stern exultation. The rajah—who was a little sombre in these days, fearing that the reconcilement to which he looked as a new and glorious era in the life of the nations might be indefinitely delayed if the conquerors could not see the wisdom of tempering justice with mercy—was urgent that from Grace all these dark tales should be kept, and her friends, knowing how sensitive she was, would not have been likely to disappoint his wish, even though Trixy, who kept a fierce and friendly watch, had been absent.
As it was, no change was made, and yet, with the onward sweep of the winter days, lovely beyond description, but burdened each one with its ghastly tale of horror, a cloud of depression, for which there was no accounting, dropped down upon her. Sleepless nights followed the sad days. The doctor, saying she was too weak to stand the continued strain, gave her anodynes that helped her through part of the night, but left her more exhausted than before. Then her mother, who had let herself be lulled by Trixy's determined hopefulness, grew alarmed. She could sleep but little herself, and one night she sat up and watched.
Grace had been given a strong opiate. Through the early part of the night she slept, with occasional starts. Then suddenly she opened her eyes, and cried out like one in deadly pain. Her mother stooped over her. 'It is a bad dream,' she said. 'Awake! I am here beside you.'
The girl looked at her. 'They are binding my eyes,' she cried with a strange bitterness. 'They think I can't see, but I can—I can! Oh, will no one do anything? Look! Do you see, do you see the horror in those eyes?'
'Whose? Whose? What do you mean, darling? There is nothing here,' said poor Lady Elton weeping.
'Nothing!' echoed the girl, 'nothing!' And she sank down on the bed sobbing. But the next instant she had sprung up again. 'They are going,' she cried—'a pillar of flame. It is killing the sweet blue of the sky—and the stars—the stars—are fading. Oh! Where do they go? What becomes of them? Some one told me once; but I have forgotten.' Then, after a pause, during which her eyes seemed to be searching. 'It is real,' she cried, 'the pain—the restlessness—the misery—it goes on. They cannot destroy it—for ever and ever and ever.' Her voice sank away to a sobbing sigh, and she sank back exhausted. Her mother took advantage of her quietness to whisper words of Christian hope and comfort.
'You forget, my darling,' she murmured. 'There is a refuge—a refuge for us all. He took the misery—He bore the pain. Look to Him—the Crucified—our Saviour.'
The girl looked up. The familiar words had penetrated the cloud of her delirium; but they brought with them no peace, rather a strange fierce anger of impatience that pierced her gentle mother to the heart.
'Our Saviour! but who is theirs?' she cried piteously, and then again came that awful heart-rending cry—inarticulate—the wail of a hurt and bewildered child. Lady Elton was on her knees by the bedside, tears raining from her eyes. 'It is breaking my heart,' she sobbed. 'Oh! Grace, don't you know me?'