She sat down beside him and held out her hand. And as she did so, I thought of Boyd Madras and of that long last night of his life, and of her refusal to say to him one comforting word, or to touch his hand in forgiveness and friendship. And was this man so much better than Boyd Madras? His wild words in delirium might mean nothing, but if they meant anything, and she knew of that anything, she was still a heartless, unnatural woman, as I had once called her.
Roscoe took her hand and held it briefly. “Dr. Marmion says that you have helped to nurse me through my illness,” he whispered. “I am most grateful.”
I thought she replied with the slightest constraint in her voice. “One could not let an old acquaintance die without making an effort to save him.”
At that instant I grew scornful, and longed to tell him of her husband. But then a husband was not an acquaintance. I ventured instead: “I am sorry, but I must cut short all conversation for the present. When he is a little better, he will be benefited by your brightest gossip, Mrs. Falchion.”
She rose smiling, but she did not again take his hand, though I thought he made a motion to that end. But she looked down at him steadily for a moment. Beneath her look his face flushed, and his eyes grew hot with light; then they dropped, and the eyelids closed on them. At that she said, with an incomprehensible airiness: “Good-night. I am going now to play the music of ‘La Grande Duchesse’ as a farewell to Gibraltar. They have a concert on to-night.”
And she was gone.
At the mention of La Grande Duchesse he sighed, and turned his head away from her. What it all meant I did not know, and she had annoyed me as much as she had perplexed me; her moods were like the chameleon’s colours. He lay silent for a long time, then he turned to me and said: “Do you remember that tale in the Bible about David and the well of Bethlehem?” I had to confess my ignorance.
“I think I can remember it,” he continued. And though I urged him not to tax himself, he spoke slowly thus:
“And David was in an hold, and the garrison of the Philistines was
then in Bethlehem.
“And David longed, and said, Oh that one would give me to drink of
the water of the well of Bethlehem that is at the gate!
“And the three brake through the host of the Philistines, and drew
water out of the well of Bethlehem that was by the gate, and took
and brought it to David; nevertheless, he would not drink thereof,
but poured it out unto the Lord.
“And he said, My God forbid it me that I should do this; is not this
the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives?
Therefore he would not drink it.”
He paused a moment, and then added: “One always buys back the past at a tremendous price. Resurrections give ghosts only.”