“Our account is not yet settled, your grace,” said Varley, sternly.
Trafford inclined his head as if assenting.
“No—no!” said Norman in a kind of despair. “You neither of you understand!” and he laid his hand upon Varley’s arm; but Varley shook it off as he turned, and walked to his horse.
Trafford entered the hut. The two women had undressed Esmeralda, and she lay like a flower, the red-gold hair framing her face and streaming over the pillow; her eyes were closed, and she seemed scarcely to breathe. She looked so “dead” that Trafford, as he sunk on his knees beside the bed, shuddered, and had hard work to repress the cry that rose to his lips. He would have taken the hand that hung down so lifeless and laid it on his bosom, but the doctor forbid it with a gesture.
“Don’t touch her,” he said. “There may be a glimmer of consciousness in her somewhere, and I can’t have her startled.”
A silence fell upon the place, broken only by the whispering of the two women as they moved about in ministration. The doctor went in and out, always with that quiet gravity on his face which the medical man wears in the presence of a “difficult” case. He had brought his medicine-case with him, and once or twice he had administered a few drops of something, and Trafford watched him as if the precious life were depending upon him.
The hours passed by, hours fraught with such anguish as few men have suffered. As he knelt there beside the girl who was his wife only in name, Trafford had no thought for anything but his love for her. He did not ask himself if she were guilty; at that moment he did not care. If she had opened her lips and confessed her guilt, he would not have cared. He loved her; and she had offered her life for him. Yes. Whether she had ever loved him or not she had been willing to die for him. There was no woman in the world like her, guilty or not; and he loved her—loved her! It was all summed up in that word. Honor, the desire for vengeance, were as nothing to him now. If she should recover—if God should give her back to him, he would hold her against Norman, against the whole world, no matter what she had done, how deeply she had sinned.
Time passed unnoticed by him; he was in a kind of trance, and he started when the doctor touched him upon the shoulder and beckoned him from the bedside.
“You must have something to eat, my lord,” he said, eying Trafford keenly.
Trafford shook his head and moved his hand impatiently.