“What is the matter; have I been ill?” said Arthur.
“You fainted,” said James, in a much-shaken voice.
“Did I? I am quite well now. I can’t remember.” Poor James blamed himself severely, both then and afterwards, for having no words with which to help or hinder Arthur’s recollection; but the great grey eyes in their black circles, fixed on him with a trouble not yet understood, completely unnerved him: he could not speak or look. Perhaps his silence answered the purpose as well as any speech. Arthur grew frightened; his heart began to beat, and his hands to tremble—his face flushed.
“What is the matter, Jem?” he said again, but with a sharper accent.
“Try to remember all you did yesterday,” said James, at length.
“Yesterday? We went to the rectory with some flowers, and I left Mysie there. Mysie?” He repeated the name with a sort of enquiry, and then James saw the trouble in his face increase as memory began to awaken and pictures, dim, yet terrible, to form themselves in his mind. He dropped back on the pillow, and lay silent, grasping Jem’s hand hard. “Is it a bad dream, Jem?” he said at length.
“No, no; not a dream,” faltered Jem.
“Then I remember; then I know, now.”
Probably his senses were still dulled and quieted by the opiate, for there was no violent outbreak of misery; he only turned away and hid his face, and James dared not put a single question to him, keen as was his curiosity, for Hugh had not yet come home. He thought it best to leave Arthur alone, as the doctor, when obliged some hours since to leave them, had advised that no attempt should be made to rouse him. Arthur lay quiet for a long time, slowly recalling step by step what had passed, till every incident was clear before him; till he saw again the copse and the rabbits, the swirling water, the boat in the sunshine; felt again the burden in his arms, yet was, perhaps, half asleep still; for, all at once, he roused up and sat upright with a start. After all, was it true?
It was quite broad daylight, and he heard movements in the house. He would get up. Had he had a bad dream after all? He got up, and the first thing he saw and touched was the coat he had worn the day before, which had been thrown aside and was still wet through. The keenest pang he had yet known shot through him as he touched it but still he began to dress, and came down stairs and went out into the garden. Was it really only twenty-four hours ago that Mysie had left the print of her footfall on the dew as she gathered the flowers for her Golden wedding gift? Had she really sat here on the top of the steps and filled her basket with them? Arthur looked down the path towards the meadows, then turned towards it. “If I see that,” he thought, “I shall understand. Surely it cannot be!” But he did not set his foot on it, but shrank away with a shiver; for he knew that the sight of the meadows would have brought the truth home, and he knew what was the truth. He went back to the house, and, in a sort of instinctive fashion, turned his steps to the dining-room, where Miss Venning was making breakfast; James and the two younger ones were standing about in a vague, uncertain fashion. They all started at sight of Arthur. George slunk out of the room in a shame-faced, school-boy fashion; while Frederica burst into tears and looked much inclined to follow his example. They were afraid of their brother, afraid of his awful, uncomprehended sorrow. Even Miss Venning could not speak to him as she took his hand, and James said, half-shyly: “Will you have some breakfast, Arthur?”