THE GIBBET ON THE SANDS
Woman! take up thy life once more
Where thou hast left it;
Nothing is changed for thee, thou art the same,
Thou who didst think that all things
Would be wholly changed for thee.
Luteplayer's Song.
Pulwick again. The whirlwind of disaster that upon that fatal fifteenth of March had burst upon the house of Landale has passed and swept away. But it has left deep trace of its passage.
The restless head, the busy hand, the scheming brain of Rupert Landale lie now mouldering under the sod of the little churchyard where first they started the mischief that was to have such far reaching effects. Low, too, lies the proud head of the mistress of Pulwick, so stricken, indeed, so fever-tortured, that those who love her best scarce dare hope more for her than rest at last under the same earth that presses thus lightly above her enemy's eternal sleep.
There is a great stillness in the house. People go to and fro with muffled steps, the master with bent white head; Miss O'Donoghue, indefatigable sick nurse; Madeleine, who may not venture as far as the threshold of her sister's room, and awaits in prayer and tears the hour of that final bereavement which will free her to take wing towards the cloister for which her soul longs; Sophia, crushed finally by the sorrows she has played at all her days. Seemingly there is peace once more upon them all, but it is the peace of exhaustion rather than that of repose. And yet—could they but know it, as the sands run down in the hour-glass of time there are golden grains gathering still to drop into the lives of each.
But meanwhile none may read the future, and Molly fights for her life in the darkened room, the gloom of which, to the souls of the dwellers at Pulwick, seems to spread even to the sunny skies without.
When Lady Landale was brought back to her home from Lancaster, it was held by every one who saw her that Death had laid his cold finger on her forehead, and that her surrender to his call could only be a matter of hours.
The physician in attendance could point out no reasonable ground for hope. Such a case had never come within his experience or knowledge, and he was with difficulty induced to believe that it was not the result of actual violence.
"In every particular," said he, "the patient's symptoms are those of coma resulting from prolonged strangulation or asphyxia. These spectacles are very dangerous to highly sensitive organisations. Lady Landale no doubt felt for the miserable wretch in the benevolence of her heart. Imagination aiding her, she realised suddenly the horror of his death throes, and this vivid realisation was followed by the actual simulacrum of the torture. We have seen hysterical subjects simulate in the same manner diverse diseases of which they themselves are organically free, such as epilepsy, or the like. But Lady Landale's condition is otherwise serious. She is alive; more I cannot say."