CHAPTER THE THIRTY-NINTH.
SAD SEWS.
A fine, drizzling rain was falling; I was just conscious of it as an element of discomfort, but it did not make me quicken my steps. I wanted no rapidity of motion now. There was nothing to be done, nothing to look forward to, nothing to flee away from. Olivia was dead!
I had said the same thing again and again to myself, that Olivia was dead to me; but at this moment I learned how great a difference there was between the words as a figure of speech and as a terrible reality. I could no longer think of her as treading the same earth—the same streets, perhaps; speaking the same language; seeing the same daylight as myself. I recalled her image, as I had seen her last in Sark; and then I tried to picture her white face, with lips and eyes closed forever, and the awful chill of death resting upon her. It seemed impossible; yet the cuckoo-cry went on in my brain, "Olivia is dead—is dead!"
I reached home just as Jack was coming in from his evening amusement. He let me in with his latch-key, giving me a cheery greeting; but as soon as we had entered the dining-room, and he saw my face, he exclaimed. "Good Heavens! Martin, what has happened to you?"
"Olivia is dead," I answered.
His arm was about my neck in a moment, for we were like boys together still, when we were alone. He knew all about Olivia, and he waited patiently till I could put my tidings into words.
"It must be true," he said, though in a doubtful tone; "the scoundrel would not have married again if he had not sufficient proof."
"She must have died very soon after my mother," I answered, "and I never knew it!"