"No," he said, "not exactly ill." He laid his hand gently upon hers, so that she could not draw it back. "Let us go outside and see if he is coming," he went on.
The old man—for sorrow and physical weakness had made him older than his years—led the way on to the verandah, still holding Lois' hand in his own. He could not have explained the indefinable force which drove him out of his wife's presence. His ear shrank from her hard, matter-of-fact voice and undisturbed optimism. She who had never had any mood but the one energetic and untirable one, had no comprehension for the changing shades of his temper—would, indeed, have rather scorned the necessity of understanding them. She did not believe in what she called "vapors," and when they ventured to cross her path she swept them away again—or thought she did—with a none too sparing brush.
Unfortunately, there are some characters who can not overcome depression, be it reasonable or unreasonable, simply because someone else happens to be cheerful. The source of their melancholy lies too deep, and the more hidden it is, the more inexplicable, the harder it is to be overcome. It is as though a chord in their temperament is linked to the future, and vibrates with painful presentiment before that which is to come. Colonel Carmichael was one of these so-called sensitive and moody people—quite unknown to himself. When the cloud hung heavily over his head, he said it was his liver or the heat, and took his cure in the form of solitude, thus escaping his wife's pitiless condemnation. And on this afternoon, yielding to his instinct, he sought to be alone with Lois. Lois never disturbed him or jarred on his worn-out nerves. In spite of her energy and vigor, there was a side of her nature which responded absolutely to his own, and with her he could always be sure of a sympathetic silence, or, what was still more, a gentle sadness which helped him more than any overflow of strident high spirits.
For some little time they stood together arm-in-arm, looking over the garden. The excuse that they were watching for Stafford was no more than an excuse, for from their position the road was completely hidden by the high wall with which the whole compound was surrounded. Through the foliage of the trees the outline of the old bungalow was faintly visible, and thither their earnest contemplation was directed. For both of them it was something more than a ruin, something more than a relic out of the tragic past. It had become, above all for the Colonel, a part of their lives, a piece of inanimate destiny to which they felt themselves tied by all the bonds of possession. It was theirs, and they in turn were possessed by the influence it exercised over their lives. Their dear ones had died within its walls, and some intuition, feeling blindly through the lightless passages of the future, told them that its history was not yet ended.
Colonel Carmichael bent down and looked into Lois' dark face. He had grown to love her as his own child, and the desire to protect and guard her from all misfortune was the one strong link that held him in the world. Life as life had disappointed him, not because he had made a failure out of it, but because success was not what he had supposed it to be. It is very likely that his subsequent indifference to existence, coupled with a far from robust constitution, would have long since cut short his earthly career had it not been for Lois. She held him fast. He flattered himself—as what loving soul does not?—that he was necessary to her, that only his old hand could keep her path clear from thorns and pitfalls. It was the last duty which life had given him to perform, and he clung to it gratefully, never realizing the pathetic truth—the saddest truth of all—that with all our love, all our heartfelt devotion and self-sacrifice, we can no more shield our dear ones from the hand of Fate than we can shield ourselves, and that their salvation, if salvation there be for them, can only come from their own strength.
"What a grave face!" he said, with a lightness he was not feeling.
"Why so serious, dear? Has anything gone wrong?"
She shook her head.
"No, nothing whatever; on the contrary, I was thinking how grateful for all my happiness I ought to feel—and do feel. Would you call me an ungrateful, discontented person, Uncle?"
"You? No! What makes you ask?"
"I think I am ungrateful, only you don't notice it, because I am not more so than most, and perhaps less than a good many. Everybody has flashes of self-revelation, don't you think, when one sees oneself and the whole world in the true proportions and not as in every-day life. I have just had such a revelation. I was feeling rather annoyed that Captain Stafford should have forgotten the tournament and so make me late; and then you said something about him—you spoke as though he were ill—and the sickening thought flashed through my mind: suppose you—or some one I loved—were taken from me—died? Then things slipped into their right size. The petty woes and grievances which so constantly irritate me became petty. I didn't care in the least about the tennis—I thanked God for you and for your love."