Of course, both the doctor and the nurses were amazed beyond words: they could not account for such a sudden and unexpected turn for the better. But I was not surprised. I had been too recently in the Presence of Christ to wonder at any manifestation of His Power. The wonder to me would have been if Fay had not recovered.
CHAPTER VIII
LOVE AMONG THE RUINS
Fay recovered rapidly, to the surprise of the doctors and the nurses, but not to mine. After that ineffable moment by what seemed to be her dying bed, I had no further anxiety about her health. I knew she was going to be better and stronger than she had ever been before.
But though I felt no anxiety on that account, I was considerably worried on another. I could not fail to see that the fact that I had been used as God's instrument in restoring my darling to health had greatly exaggerated my importance in her eyes. Although I tried my utmost to convince her that it was all God's doing and not mine in the least, I could not quell the uprush of undeserved gratitude to me which filled her dear heart. Also, perhaps, the appeal of her weakness loosened the armour of reserve which I had once buckled on so tightly, and, strive as I might, I could no longer keep my love for her out of my eyes and voice. It would work through, in spite of all my efforts to suppress it.
I knew by now that Fay loved me: I knew that she knew that I loved her. Then what was I to do?
I could never be grateful enough to God that He had used me as His instrument in bringing my Beloved back to life and health, but of what avail would that restored life be to her if I marred it by allowing her to mate the fulness of her youth with crabbed age? Should I, who had been granted, under God, the inestimable blessing of saving her life, be the one to spoil it for her? Was it for me to mar what I had been permitted to make: to destroy what I had been allowed to restore?
Yet how I loved her! Only God and my own soul knew how I loved her! Surely no young man, however worthier of her he might be in every other respect, could ever love her as much as I did.
In my perplexity I consulted Arthur. The advice of my parish priest—or, as the Prayer Book puts it, of any discreet and learned minister—ought to be of help to me in a perplexity such as this. Being a clergyman, Arthur would know so much more about human nature than I knew; for then—as always—I had no confidence in my own judgment.
I put the case to Blathwayte as tersely as I could, begging him not to allow his friendship for me to lure him into setting my happiness before my duty.