“No—that’s it. He gave it up after five years—five whole years—to marry me. It was hard, he said, but he felt that it was possible, and he loved me, and he determined not to marry me while he was a slave to the poison. He gave it up for my sake. Wasn’t that heroic?”
“Yes,” said Katharine, gravely, and wondering whether she had misjudged Crowdie. “It was really heroic. They say it is the hardest thing any one can do.”
“He did it. I love him ten times more for it—but—this is the result of giving it up, dear. He will always be subject to these awful attacks. He says that a dose of morphia would stop one of them instantly, and perhaps prevent their coming back for a long time. But he won’t take it. He says he would rather cut off his hand than take it, and he made me promise not to give it to him when he is unconscious, if I ever see him in that state again. He’s so brave about it,” she said, with a little choking sigh. “I’ve told you my story, dear.”
Her face relaxed a little, and she opened and shut her hands slowly as though they had been stiffened.
Katharine sat with her half an hour longer that afternoon, sympathizing at first and then trying to divert her attention from the subject which filled all her heart and mind. Then she rose to go.
As they went out together from the little sitting-room, the sound of Crowdie’s voice came down to them from the studio in the upper story. The door must have been open. Katharine and Hester stood still and listened, for he was singing, alone and to himself, high up above them, a little song of Tosti’s with French words.
“Si vous saviez que je vous aime.”
It was indeed a marvellous voice, and as Katharine listened to the soft, silver notes, and felt the infinite pathos of each phrase, she wondered whether, with all his success as a painter, Crowdie had not mistaken his career. She listened, spell-bound, to the end.
“It’s divine!” she exclaimed. “There’s no other word for it.”
Hester Crowdie was paler than ever, and her soft grey eyes were all on fire. And yet she had heard him hundreds of times. Almost before Katharine had shut the glass door behind her, she heard the sound of light, quick footsteps as Hester ran upstairs to her husband.