"Farewell. If ever in happy days to come for you your memory should chance to wander back to that night in Louvain when first our knowledge of each other arose; to the woman who was to play some little part in your existence--for--a time, spare her a--a--one moment's thought. Think of her as--as one----" But now her voice failed her, too, and she was silent.
Neither could Bevill speak yet, and still stood there holding her hand in his even as he observed the trembling of her lips, the tears standing in her soft blue, eyes--even as he heard the word "Bevill" murmured through those lips.
But, also, he observed something else as his troubled glance fell now upon his wife. He saw Sylvia's own lips move though no sound issued from them; he saw some suggestion, some prompting in Sylvia's own clear, grey eyes; and, seeing, grasped what they conveyed. Bending therefore to her who stood before him, he parted the hair that grew low down upon her forehead; bending still lower, he kissed her once--even as a brother might have kissed a loved sister. "Farewell, Radegonde;" he whispered, "Farewell," and saw by one swift glance at Sylvia's face that he had comprehended her meaning.
Yet never through the long life that was to be his did he know what Sylvia's womanly heart had told her, nor understand that which she understood.
* * * * * * *
Embosomed in the woods of Surrey there stands a house once white, now grey, on the face of which the lichen and the ivy picturesquely mingle. In front of it sweeps down a lawn to where a little river bubbles over the pebbles of its bed; round it are arbours and bosquets of quaint shape over which grows clematis many-hued--white, purple, flame-coloured. Round that lawn, too, grow trees that are ancient now, and that, when young, drew their existence from other lands than ours. Against the pilasters of the great porch, which gives entrance to a vast hall and supports a balcony on to which all the windows of the first floor open, trails a passion flower, old--perhaps, indeed, oft-times renewed in memory of him who planted the first one; of him who may have whispered as he did so: "'Twas by such flowers as these you were embowered, enshrined, on that night when first we met; so long as may be shall that flower grow against our home, the White House." For if from Holland, in those far-off days, some had wandered here who had ever gazed on a white house standing on the outskirts of Liége, they must have seen, and, seeing, recognised another house so like to it that its resemblance could be no fanciful one, but, in truth, a resemblance carefully studied and wrought.
In the great hall whose vast stairs at the farther end curve up on either side, many pictures hang and tell of what the originals must have been in life. Bevill, first Lord Bracton, is there, mounted on a bay horse, his uniform that of the Cuirassiers, or 4th Horse, his ribbons and orders showing that he held general's rank. On one side of this picture the painter has placed in a vertical line the words, "Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, Malplaquet," to testify that he who looks down took part in those glorious victories.
Yet if, as in truth, he does thus look down, either the limner's art, or the light cast at certain times from the great roof above, appears to make those eyes rest on one whose full-length portrait hangs by the side of his. On her! On his wife--some few years older in the picture than when first she learnt to love him and when, through rain and mire, she rushed as fast as might be to gain the help of Marlborough. A little older, yes; but not less fair and sweet. Stately as ever in her grace of matronhood; noble in her height, beautiful in feature, and with her clear, pure eyes undimmed, though in her rich brown hair some silver threads are seen. In each hand the woman holds the hand of a child.
"Now the two were locked in
each other's arms."