YOUR OWN HUSBAND.
In great haste.
The trouble about the jealousies of would-be directors on the new board still continues, and have postponed selection till next week—crossing to-morrow night.
On my husband's return home from Ireland in September, after having established the Irish Daily Independent, he was looking so worn out and ill that I was thoroughly alarmed about his health. He was very cheerful and happy while he was at home, and I had much difficulty in keeping him quietly lying down to rest on the sofa. But, though he protested while following my wishes, I saw as I sat watching him while he slept that the tired, grey shadows were growing deeper upon his beautiful face, and that in sleep he had that absolute stillness which one only finds in very healthy children or in the absolutely exhausted sleep of adults.
I tried to induce him to see Sir Henry Thompson in town, but he would not consent—saying that he could not waste a moment of his little time at home, and that, though he did feel tired, that was all.
"I am not ill," he said, "only a little tired. Queenie, my wife, you do not really think I am ill, do you?"
Knowing the one weakness of his brave heart, his anger and terror at the idea of illness and of the far-off death that might divide us, I answered only that I thought he was too tired, that nothing, not even Ireland, was worth it, and I besought him now at last to give it all up, and to hide away with me till a long rest, away from the turmoil and contention, had saved him from the tiredness that would, I feared, become real illness if he went on.
He lay watching me as I spoke, and, after a long pause, he answered, "I am in your hands, Queenie, and you shall do with me what you will; but you promised."
"You mean I promised that I would never make you less than——-"
"Less than your King," he interrupted, "and if I give in now I shall be less than that. I would rather die than give in now—give in to the howling of the English mob. But if you say it I will do it, and you will never hear of it again from me, my love, my own wife." And as I gazed down into the deep, smouldering eyes, where the little flames always leapt out to meet mine, I knew I could not say it, I knew that in the depths of those eyes was more than even my love could fathom, that in the martyrdom of our love was to be our reparation.