“No, dear. I didn’t seriously think she would. But then—she’s your wife, Jack. She might tell you what she wouldn’t tell any one else, and yet not think that she were giving away a secret. Most women would, I think.”
“Katharine’s not like most women,” said Ralston, gravely.
A silence followed, during which his mother watched his face, and her own grew beautiful with mother’s pride in man, and woman’s gladness for woman’s dignity.
When Ralston and his mother separated, they had come to a clear understanding about the future. They had decided to say nothing about the marriage until Katharine had recovered sufficiently to leave Robert Lauderdale’s home, and then to establish her in their house, and tell the world that there had been a private wedding. If the old gentleman died,—and they were obliged to take this probability into consideration,—Katharine would have to be brought at once. If anything, this would make matters simpler. The household would be in mourning, Katharine would be unable to go out or to appear at all for some time, and society would easily believe that during the two or three weeks which must pass in this way, the marriage might have taken place.
CHAPTER XIV.
No one slept much during the early part of the night in the millionaire’s home. Katharine lay long awake, prevented from sleeping partly by the painful numbness in her bandaged arm, and partly by the ever recurring picture of the day’s doings which came back to her unceasingly in the stillness. Just as the picture was growing shadowy and dreamlike, some slight sound would break it and recall her to herself,—a distant foot-fall on the stairs, the opening and shutting of a door near her own, or even the occasional roll of a belated carriage in the street.
There was a soft light in the sick man’s room. The white walls and hangings took up and distributed the whiteness, so that even the remotest corners were not dark. Robert Lauderdale lay in his bed, breathing softly, his eyes not quite closed, and his bony hands lying like knotty twigs upon the white Shetland wool that covered his body. For they were like wood or stone, yellowish in colour, rough in shape, and yet oddly polished by time, as some old men’s hands are. His snowy beard and hair, too, were almost sandy again, as they had been in youth, by contrast with the delicate linen and the snow-white, sheeny material that was everywhere.
He was not sleeping with his eyes open, as dying persons sometimes sleep a whole day. Nor was his mind wandering. Doctor Routh could see that well enough, as he sat there hour after hour, watching his old friend. The doctor wished that he might really fall asleep, and let his weary old heart gather strength to live a little longer. But even Routh was giving up hope. The machine was running down, and the game was played out. There was not one chance in a hundred that Robert Lauderdale could live another twelve hours. From time to time the doctor gave him a little stimulant, but the failing heart reacted less and less.
Between three and four o’clock in the morning, the old man turned his head slowly on the pillow, and his sunken eyes met Routh’s in a long look—the look which those who have watched by the dying know very well.
“Routh,” said the hoarse voice, with solemn slowness, “I’m going to give up the ghost.”