Above stairs there was the same restlessness and sense of uneasy expectancy. Clare went to bed, but not to sleep. Her mind was not with her father—she had been waiting for his death during many long weeks, and now that the time had arrived she could scarcely think of it otherwise than calmly. If one had lived like a Trojan one would die like one—quietly, becomingly, in accordance with the best traditions. She was sure that there would be something ready for Trojans in the next world a little different from other folks' destiny—something select and refined—so why worry at going to meet it?
No, it was not Sir Jeremy, but Robin. Throughout the night she heard the clocks striking the quarters; the first light of dawn crept timidly through the shuttered blinds, the full blaze of the sun streamed on to her bed—and she could not sleep. The conversation of the day before recalled itself syllable for syllable; she read into it things that had never been there and tortured herself with suspicion and doubt. Robin was different—utterly different. He was different even from a week ago when he had first told them of the affair. She could hear his voice as he had bent over her asking her to forgive him; that had seemed to her then the hour of her triumph—but now she saw that it was the premonition of defeat. How she had worked for him, loved him, spoilt him; and now, in these weeks, her lifework was utterly undone. And then, in the terrible loneliness of her room, with the darkness on the world and round her bed and at her heart, she wept—terrible, tearless sobbing that left her in the morning weak, unstrung, utterly unequal to the day.
This conversation with Robin had also worried Garrett. The consolation that he had frequently found in the reassuring comforts of his study seemed utterly wanting to-night. The stillness irritated him; it seemed stuffy, close, and he had an overmastering desire for a companion. This desire he conquered, because he felt that it would be scarcely dignified to search the byways of the house for a friend; but he listened for steps, and fancied over and over again that he heard the eagerly anticipated knock. But no one came, and he sat far into the night, fancying strange sounds and trembling at the dark; and at last fell asleep in his chair, and was discovered in an undignified position on the floor in the early morning by the politely astonished Benham.
But it was for Harry that the night most truly marked a crisis. He spent it in vigil by the side of his father, and watched the heavy passing of the hours, like grey solemn figures through the darkened room. The faint glimmer of the electric light, heavily shaded, assumed fantastic and portentous shapes and fleecy enormous shadows on the white surface of the staring walls. Strange blue shadows glimmered through the black caverns of the windows, and faint lights came from beneath the door, and hovered on the ceiling like mysteriously moving figures.
Sir Jeremy was perfectly still. Death had come to him very gently and had laid its hand quietly upon him, with no violence or harshness. It was only old age that had greeted him as a friend, and then with a smile had persuaded him to go. He was unconscious now, but at any moment his senses might return, and then he would ask for Harry. The crisis might come at any time, and Harry must be there.
He felt no weariness; his brain was extraordinarily active and he passed every incident since his return in review. It all seemed so clear to him now; the inevitability of it all; and his own blindness in escaping the meaning of it. It seemed now that he had known nothing of the world at all three weeks ago. Then he had judged it from his own knowledge—now he saw it in many lights; the point of view of Robin, of Dahlia Feverel, of Clare, of Sir Jeremy, of Bethel, of Mary—he had arrived at the great knowledge that Life could be absolutely right for many different sorts of people—that the same life, like a globe of flashing colours, could shine into every corner of obscurity, gleaming differently in every different place and yet be unchangeable. Murderer, robber, violator, saint, priest, king, beggar—they were all parts of a wonderful, inevitable world, and, he saw it now, were all of them essential. He had been tolerant before from a wide-embracing charity; he was tolerant now from a wide-embracing knowledge: "Er liebte jeden Hund, und wünschte von jedem Hund geliebt zu sein."
They had all learnt in that last three weeks. Dahlia Feverel would pass into the world with that struggle at her heart and the strength of her victory—his father would solve the greatest question of all—Robin! Mary! Clare!—they had all been learning too, but what it was that they had learnt he could not yet tell; the conclusion of the matter was to come. But it had all been, for him at least, only a prelude; he was to stand for the world as head of the House, he had his life before him and his work to do, he had only, like Robin, just "come of age."
He did not know why, but he had no longer any doubt. He knew that he would win Robin, he knew that he would win Mary; up to that day he had been uncertain, vacillating, miserable—but now he had no longer any hesitation. The work of his life was to fit Robin for his due succession, and, please God, he would do it with all his heart and soul and strength; there was to be no false sentiment, no shifting of difficult questions, no hiding from danger, no sheltering blindly under unquestioned creeds, no false bids for popularity.
Robin was to be clean, straight, and sane, with all the sturdy cleanliness and strength and sanity that his father's love and knowledge could give him.
Oh! he loved his son!—but no longer blindly, as he had loved him three weeks ago ... and so he faced his future.