"I 'm killing her," he thought sombrely, "and she is sick of it! Sick of nursing me, and of her life here! How can one blame her! I only wonder it did n't come sooner. How could I ever have hoped to keep a woman like her ... to make a slave of ... in a doctor's commonplace home!"
He closed his eyes again and the swift despondency of the invalid welled up in him. When she came back to his sofa the old moody shadow was on his face, the look of strain back about his brows. Timidly, and with her face turned from the light, so that he might not see the trace of her tears, she said:
"Is there anything you would like, Joe?"
"No, thank you, dear ... I have you!" He spoke gently, and put out his hand to her without opening his eyes. A moment later his sombre thought escaped from him almost involuntarily.
"I have you--though God knows for how long!" Then he waited for the touch of her lips on his, the rush of tender reproach for his unfaith. He did not indeed know how passionately hungry he was for those words--until they did not come! Nor how his lips ached for the touch of hers--until that long, still moment of waiting! Nothing happened; nothing came. No kiss, no word of protest. He could scarcely believe it at first. If he had not still been holding her hand, he might have supposed that she had risen and gone away. For he had not opened his eyes, but lay waiting as sometimes one waits with eyes closed for the coming of a beautiful thing. The knowledge flashed upon him suddenly that it was a long while since Val had kissed him. So long, that he could scarcely remember when. Was it before his illness? No: looking back down the vista of burning days of fever and discomfort, he could remember that before unconsciousness came upon him her fresh mouth was often laid like a rose upon his dry one and at the memory he longed again for its fragrance as a thirsty man in the desert longs for a cup of cold water. He was aware that when at last she did bend over him he would bind his arms round her, and holding her fast to his heart devour and consume her, and never let her go from him again. But in the same moment he was seized with the torment all true lovers know, the agonising knowledge that however much the lips may devour and the arms bind, and the heart strain to hold there is a limit to the reach of human love, a door to which the key will never be found, a barrier beyond which the aloof and lonely soul of the beloved sits stern and contemplative, for ever lonely in its secret place. This is the torment of all earthly love. No true lovers but have sought in each other's eyes the key of that implacable door, striven to drag the secret from each other's lips, known the darkness and desolation of that outer place! Lying there, waiting for his wife's kiss, Garrett Westenra suffered this torment for the first time.
It was characteristic of him that when at last he understood that she meant to make no response either by word or deed to the cry of his heart so thinly veiled beneath the sadness of his words, he did not question or upbraid her. He only lay very still, turning over and over in his mind the cruel fact that she was weary of him and of their life together. Between his half-closed lids he observed her, silent and white, looking down at the hand which, tightly held by his, lay on her knee. He realised then how fierce his grip had been, and relaxing it gently drew away his hand. What good to grip the casket so close when the jewel it had held for him was gone!
"What do you think we had better do, Val?" he said at last, speaking out of his pain, and meaning "with the rest of life." He did not expect so quick and definite a response as she made.
"I think that as soon as you feel well enough to travel you should go out West, and stay until you are quite strong again."
"You and the children too?"
"Oh! no, no!" she cried hastily--too hastily with so keen a listener intent on her. She saw her mistake and tried to cover it with calm reasoning words. "What change would it be for you with us everlastingly at your heels? Bran rampaging, Haidee worrying--and I--oh, of course, it would not do at all. You must see that." Her arguments might have sounded silly but for their urgency to convince, and her pleading eyes. He stared straight before him, but missed no single shade of her face or voice.