So Mary and Sophy were sent back to Ironbeam, their father went to meet his pheasants, and their mother hurried back to her twin, all that old tenderness reviving instinctively so as to render the sisterly contact the greatest comfort then possible to either. Ferdinand had taken care to inform the departing Sir Adrian that he was about to leave Vale Leston, and was in fact only waiting for the opinion of the London doctor who had seen Felix before, and for whom, with Tom May's sanction, he had telegraphed.
Gratitude to him for having devised this, and trust to further advice buoyed Cherry up, as she watched in the painting-room, giving orders, answering inquiries, and never swerving from hope and that intense prayer for her brother's restoration, which no one could discourage, nor even qualify in vehemence. Why should not a life so valuable be given back to her entreaties and those of many another suppliant? Yet Mr. Audley, going backwards and forwards between her and the patient, could not but be struck by observing that Felix himself rather allowed than demanded the supplications for recovery, and though extremity of pain often wrung from him cries for relief and sobs for mercy, yet in the calmer periods these became sighs for the power of enduring his cross better, and of not loosening his hold on his Saviour, and sometimes even the moan had more of praise than of plaint. He was still quite sensible, but the intervals between the paroxysms were so far from painless that he never showed any wish to see or speak to any but those immediately about him, namely, Clement and Angela, with Lance and Robina as supplementary helpers, and Mr. Audley, when he could bear it.
Tom May waited all day, doing his best till his London friend came, and could do nothing but confirm his treatment, and agree that the shadow of hope was not yet absolutely impossible, though human means were unavailing. However, between exhaustion and a fresh form of anodyne, a sort of stupor was induced towards the evening, and this was again a relief, at least to those who durst call it sleep.
Ferdinand profited by it to tear himself away according to his promise, and Marilda betook herself and her much aggrieved maid to the Rood, carrying the children with her, to spend the day, though there was no room to lodge them at night; poor Gerald submitting passively, as the fresh misfortune of losing both Fernan and Mary Vanderkist fell on him. Marilda's quarters were left to Sister Constance, who arrived at the appointed time, to find herself less needed at the Priory than the cottage, where the greeting she received from the sorrowful and anxious Lady Vanderkist was no small contrast to the manner in which Alda Underwood had requited her services.
The beneficent torpor lasted far into the night, and in some way or other all, save Clement and Angela, consented to take a certain amount of rest. Even Angela, though refusing to lie down, must have dozed in her chair by the fire, for as her perception gradually returned to her, she heard broken tones from Felix, and saw Clement standing over him. The first words that fully met her ear were the conclusion of what had gone before. 'There! stained, weak, failing, erring, more than I can say—more than I can recollect—I can only trust all to the washing in my Saviour's precious blood. Let me hear His message.'
The deep, thankful intensity of the gaze, looking far beyond Clement standing over him and pronouncing the Absolution, impressed Angela with strange awe.
Full of the past, all shuddering twilight,
Man waits his hour with upward eye,
The golden keys in love are brought,
That he may hold by them and die.
It was a face of love, eagerness, absorption, that no one could ever forget, as the voice of pardon was listened to with folded hands.
She dared not move till there was again need of her assistance. When she could utter a word to Clement, it was: 'Is not he better?' but Clement shook his head. Still the last doctor's advice had enabled the worst part of the suffering to be so far kept in abeyance, that before that morning's dawn the Feast could be held in the sick chamber, among those whom Clement ventured to call together for it. The greater calm much encouraged Cherry, and she went away cheered by the face that could still give her a smile, declaring that Felix did not look worse than when he was bloodless after the accident.
Both she and Bernard hugged their hope. Even when, before the day was out, all the family knew of Tom May's verdict that those symptoms had set in which extinguished all chance of recovery without a miracle; still those two upheld one another in shutting their eyes to the inference, and continued to rejoice in the comparative relief from the heartrending spasms of the previous days, while others knew but too well that this was only the token that the struggle of the constitution was over.