She saw how the utterance of those few words told upon him, and refrained from the delight of listening longer to the voice that was still to her inexpressibly dear. So she checked him fondly when he would have gone on speaking. Yet the silence that ensued was first broken by Cecil.
“My own! I fear—I fear that you are in great danger. How long we may both have to suffer, 66 God alone can tell. But will you not see a clergyman? He might help you though I am weak and powerless.”
A shadow of the old sardonic scorn swept across Keene’s emaciated face, and passed away as suddenly.
“It is somewhat late for any help that priests can bring. Besides, I can not dwell now on any of my past sins, save one. All my thoughts are taken up with the wrong that I have done to you.”
This was true. If there were reproachful phantoms that had a right to haunt Royston’s death-bed, the living presence kept them all at bay.
Cecil’s eyes had never been more eloquent than they were then, but they spoke of nothing but despair.
“Ah, heaven! can not you see that all I have to forgive has been forgiven long ago? What is to become of me if you die hardened in your sin? Must I live on, hoping that we are parted forever? If you are pitiless to your own soul, have mercy, at least, upon me!”
All Royston’s former crimes seemed to him venial by comparison, as he witnessed the misery and abasement of the glorious creature on whom he had brought such sorrow, if not shame. The remorse that a strong will and hard heart had stifled so long found voice at last in three muttered words—“God forgive me!” A very niggardly and inadequate expression of contrition—was it not?—conceded to a life whose sins outnumbered its years. Yet the slight thread of hope drawn therefrom has been able since to hold back Cecil Tresilyan from the abyss of utter desperation. She forbore to press him farther then, seeing his increasing weakness, and trusting, perhaps, that a more favorable opportunity would come.
Indeed, there were a thousand things to be said about the past, in which both had borne a part, and the future, in which only one could share; but Royston had estimated rightly the extent of his remaining physical resources; and when he found how each syllable exhausted him, he became as chary of words as a miser of his gold. His right hand still grasped hers firmly; and her delicate cheek was pillowed on his shoulder; the fingers of his other hand played gently with a long, glossy chestnut tress that had escaped from the prison of the close cap she wore. So they remained, for a long time—no sound passing between them, beyond half-formed whispers of endearment: no one came in to molest them: there was work enough and to spare, that night, for all in Scutari. The thought of interruption never crossed Cecil’s mind for an instant. Always careless and defiant of conventionality, or the world’s opinion, she was tenfold more reckless now. Her head was bent down, and her eyes closed; so that she could not see how the hollows deepened on her lover’s face; nor how the pallor of his cheek darkened rapidly to an ashen-gray. But inward warnings of approaching dissolution spoke plainly enough to Royston Keene. He knew what he had to do.
He raised her head from where it rested, and said, so gently, “If my time is short, there is the more reason that I should be loth to lose you, even for an hour. But you must have rest; and I feel as if I could sleep. Do not try to persuade me; but leave me now. When you think hereafter of this evening, remember what my last words were. I loved you best of all. Darling—wish me good-night; and come to see me early to-morrow.”