“Ah no!” she answered quickly. “Is it likely he would? He calls himself a helpless log; and I know that the worst trouble of all is, that he thinks his helplessness divides him from me. Papa, I want you to go to him. I want you to tell him that we will be married very soon—as soon as it can be arranged—and that I will nurse him back to health. Tell him that we will stay happily together here, and have only one home, here at Penarvon. I know you do not want to lose me, yet I know (for you have told me) that you would like to see me Eustace’s wife. Well, it is all so easy. Do you not see it so yourself? Dearest father, I love him, and he loves me. What can anything else matter? Does not his weakness and his helplessness make me love him all the more? I want to have the right to be with him always, to lighten the load which will weigh on him, however brave and patient he is, heavily sometimes. I shall never love anybody else; and I think he will not either. Why should we wait? Why should we not have the happiness of belonging to one another before he is strong again as well as after? Why should those years be wasted for us both?”
The Duke looked into her soft, unfathomable eyes, and he ceased to oppose her.
“It shall be as you wish, my dear,” he said. “I believe had it been with me as it is with Eustace, your mother would have done just what you propose to do. God has His angels here below amongst us still. I will go and speak of this to Eustace, if you wish it. You are right, my child, in saying that I would fain see you married to Eustace, since you love each other. I had not thought of this way, but perhaps it is the best.”
“You will come and tell me what he says,” answered Bride, with a lovely blush upon her face; and the Duke went slowly upstairs to the sick-room.
Eustace was gaining vital power rapidly and most satisfactorily, and was not paralysed in the ordinary acceptation of the term; but he had received such violent blows in the spine, either from the force of the waves whilst he was tossed to and fro at their mercy, or by being dashed upon rocks—though there were few outward bruises or cuts—that the whole nervous power had been most seriously impaired, and he could neither raise himself in bed nor move any of his limbs, although sensation was not materially affected. It was a case likely to be tedious and trying rather than dangerous or hopeless. There was every prospect of an ultimate recovery; but great patience would be needed, and any premature attempts at exertion might lead to bad results. Eustace had heard his fate with resolute courage, and had breathed no word of repining since; but a gravity had settled down upon him which deepened rather than lessened day by day; and Bride had been quick to note this, and trace it to its source.
With the Duke, the relations of the young man were now of a most cordial character. His kinsman had played a father’s part to him during these past days, and his visits were always welcome in the monotony of sick-room life.
“I have been talking to Bride,” said the elder man, as he took his accustomed seat; “we have been talking about your marriage, Eustace, and neither she nor I see why it should be indefinitely postponed. Indeed, there seems good reason for hastening it on, since she can then be your companion and nurse, as is not possible now, greatly as she wishes it. We cannot think of parting with you till you are well and strong once more, and that will not be for some time even at best. Have I your authority to arrange with Mr. St. Aubyn for a marriage here as quickly as it can be arranged? Since your minds are both made up, there appears no reason why Bride should not have the comfort of caring for you and making you her charge. Perhaps you hardly estimate the joy which such a charge is to a woman of her loving nature. But you know her well enough to believe that she never speaks a word that is not literal truth; and as she wishes to have that privilege, I confess I see no legitimate objection.”
Eustace had been silent, much as the Duke had been silent when the girl laid her proposal before him. Sheer astonishment and an unbounded sense of his own unworthiness and her almost divine devotion and love held him spellbound for a moment; and when his words came they were tempestuous and contradictory, declaring one moment the thing impossible—Bride’s youth must not be so sacrificed—the next declaring that it was too much happiness, that he dared not accept it, because it was altogether too much joy to contemplate. The Duke let him have his fling, and then took up his word again, imposing silence by a gentle motion of the hand.
“I respect your doubts and your scruples, Eustace; but I think you need not let them weigh too heavily in the balance against your own wishes and ours. I will take you into my confidence, and I think you will then see that even for Bride’s sake this thing is a good one. She does not know it, but I have a mortal illness upon me, which may carry me off at any moment, though I may perhaps be spared some few years longer. I myself consulted the physician whom we summoned for you, and he admitted that my life was a bad one, and that with my family history I must not look to be spared much longer. You know how lonely Bride would be were I taken from her. You can imagine how greatly I desire to see her settled in life with a husband to love and cherish her. Were I to die whilst you were thus laid aside, you must of necessity be separated, and where would Bride go? What would she do? Money is not everything. A home—a husband’s care—that is what a woman wants. Eustace, if you are made man and wife now, all this anxiety will be done away, and the happiness of all will be secured. Will you not consent? It all rests with you, for I desire it, and Bride desires it—I think you desire it——”
“Only too much!” cried Eustace, with such a light in his eyes as had not been seen there for weeks, “only too much. I am afraid of my own intensity of desire.”