CHAPTER XXIII
On a warm morning, toward the middle of June, Frederic and Lydia sat in the quaint, old-world courtyard, almost directly beneath the balcony of Yvonne's boudoir. He lounged comfortably, yet weakly, in the invalid-chair that had been wheeled to the spot by Ranjab, and she sat on a pile of cushions at his feet.
Looking at him, one would not have thought that he had passed through the valley of the shadow of death and was but now emerging into the sunshine of security. His face was pale, but there was a healthy gloss to the skin and a clear light in the eye.
For a week or more he had been permitted to walk about the house and into the garden, always leaning on the arm of his father or the faithful Hindu. Each succeeding day saw his strength and vitality increase, and each night he slept with the peace of a care-free child. He was filled with contentment; he loved life as he had never dreamed it would be possible for him to love it. There was a song in his heart and there was a bright star always on the edge of his horizon.
As for Lydia, she was radiant with happiness. The long fight was over. She had gone through the campaign against death with loyal, unfaltering courage; there had never been an instant when her staunch heart had failed her; there had been distress, but never despair. If the strain told on her it did not matter, for she was of the fighting kind. Her love was the sustenance on which she throve, despite the beggarly offerings that were laid before her during those weeks of famine. Her strong, young body lost none of its vigour; her splendid spirit gloried in the tests to which it was subjected, and now she was as serene as the June day that found her wistfully contemplating the results of victory.
Times there were when a pensive mood brought the touch of sadness to her grateful heart. She was happy and Frederic was happy, but what of the one who actually had wrought the miracle? That one alone was unhappy, unrequited, undefended. There was no place for her in the new order of things. When Lydia thought of her, as she often did, it was with an indescribable craving in her soul. She longed for the hour to come when Yvonne Brood would lay aside the mask of resignation and demand tribute; when the strange defiance that held all of them at bay would disappear, and they could feel that she no longer regarded them as adversaries.
There was no longer a symptom of rancour in the heart of Lydia Desmond. She realised that her beloved's recovery was due almost entirely to the remarkable influence exercised by this woman at a time when mortal agencies appeared to be of no avail. Her absolute certainty that she had the power to thwart death, at least in this instance, had its effect not only on the wounded man, but on those who attended him.
Dr Hodder and the nurses were not slow to admit that her magnificent courage, her almost scornful self-assurance, supplied them with an incentive that otherwise might never have got beyond the form of a mere hope. There was something positively startling in her serene conviction that Frederic was not to die. No less a sceptic than the renowned Dr Hodder confided to Lydia and her mother that he now believed in the supernatural and never again would say “there is no God.”