"Yes; it would be inhuman," said the curate suddenly, "to go to a tennis-party, or a party of any kind, when that poor woman is lying at death's door."
"A merely plebeian idea, I assure you, Miss Robinson," said Ambert, taking Elfrida's hand and pressing it in a tender fashion. "I trust you will not let yourself be influenced by it, and that I shall see you on Tuesday." He paused. "I shall see you to-morrow, at all events!"
He pressed her hand again, bowed to Agatha—he had already made his adieux to Mrs. Greatorex—gave a nod to Dicky Browne, who seemed delighted with him in some strange way, and without so much as a glance at the curate, though, certainly, courtesy demanded as much as that, he went his way.
CHAPTER XI
It was quite true: Mrs. Darkham was at the very portals of death. Whether those great gates were to be opened for her, or she could be dragged back from them, was the question that troubled the physicians who attended her.
Perhaps it troubled her husband more than them. He was sitting now in his library, in the big chair, with his arms hanging listlessly over the arms of it, and his head pushed somewhat forward. He was thinking.
The doctors had come and gone, and both were agreed. It was almost an impossibility, but not quite; she might, if such and such a change occurred, live. If not, death lay before her—a death into which she would enter without revisiting, even in thought, this world again. Dr. Bland, an elderly man, and one of great and deserved reputation, gave it as his opinion that if death did not ensue in a very few hours, hope might be entertained. Dillwyn had nodded an assent, and had said a few words too—to the effect that such grave cases had been known to recover even after hope seemed at an end. He had kept his eyes carefully averted from the husband of the injured woman whilst saying this. He had looked at him when he first entered the room, but he could not trust himself to look again. There was something terrible in Darkham's face, something hungry, ravenous. An animal stalking its prey might have looked like that.
And now Darkham sat alone in his library thinking—thinking. They had given it as their opinion that she would die—those two who left—that she would die! Would leave him free— free of her accursed company!
A sort of fierce joy rose up and seized upon him. It caught and shook him. Free! free! After all these years! Free! She was dying. Surely, certainly! In a few hours her breath would cease, and no more would her odious, vulgar words and accents make him shrink and shudder. She would be gone to the Great Unknown, and he—-
And it would be none of his doing—none! Here the great passionate joy that thrilled him seemed to culminate. He would be rid of her, without a single effort of his own. Had he even dreamed of making an effort?.... He would be quit of her in an hour or two—a day at latest. Surely the stars in their courses were fighting for him!