What happened now I do not find it easy to tell, for my next weeks were passed in a state like to De Quincey's "tortures of opium": I cannot clearly remember telling Langler what had happened, or showing him the telegrams, and he had to return to Swandale alone, in what sort of state I do not know, for I was in a bad dream, flushed with fever, nor was I able to go out of doors till the 25th of April. It was a Sunday, towards evening, I was accompanied by a friend, and we happened to go into St Clement Dane's, where the preacher referred to Miss Langler, and expressed the wonder of the world at the outrage; but what makes that service stand out in my memory is a little thing that happened to myself, for I was sitting with my head bowed during the Kyrie when a priest who was pacing about came and pushed me rudely on the back, saying: "kneel, kneel." I never was more astonished.
The next day I stood at last by the bedside of our friend. She knew me, I think, though not very clearly, but I understood that she had received such a shock this time that she would never more be strong, even if she did not die, for she had been still frail from the first woe when again she was torn. Langler stood with me and watched her, for his self-control was at all times fine, though I don't think born with him, but won by strict schooling of himself; but after a time when we saw her tossing her head from side to side, so acquainted with misfortune, we had to turn from her. She had been especially unlucky, since she had meant to be on her guard, never to be out of doors alone, during her brother's absence; but in passing from her carriage at the park wall of Dale Manor to the house, it had come upon her. I remember spending that evening of my arrival on my back at a window, staring up at a poplar which looked like a fountain of leafage shot up to a point on high out of the ground; sometimes its top seemed to be sailing against the sky, as toppling to fall; and the breaths of the wind rocked its branches, roughing up the under-white of its foliage with a chaunting like the psalm of Time; and a starling flew up to her charming home on high in it: and this somehow calmed and consoled me.
I could stay only three days then, and for the next six weeks was to and fro between Swandale and London on dates of which I have no record, spending most of my time in a sort of political pool and uproar of things, which perhaps did me good. Those were Diseased Persons days, and well I recollect the thrill that ran through England on the night of its virtual throwing out by the Lords in Committee. Burton and Edwards were now at their death-grips, on the side of the archbishop being all the awe of the nation, on that of the minister all its reason, its secret sympathy, for it seemed that even God, howling from heaven, could not quite bring it about to clericalise the modern world. I had just telegraphed the throwing out to Langler, and was gossiping about it with some men in one of my clubs—it was late, after the theatres—when I was aware of Baron Kolár's presence: he had come in with three men, and his eyes, swimming round, found me out. He walked straight to me. "Miss Langler," were his first low words—"how is she?"
The cheek, and also the hearty concern, of the question confounded me. "Miss Langler is, of course, gravely ill," I answered.
He groaned, with a look of ruth, of care, on his face: nor did it occur to me to suppose it feigned, since I very well knew that the man was no hypocrite; yet I was sure too, in my heart, that here was the man who was the undoer of Miss Langler.
"But surely she will recover?" said he: "let me hear now that she will."
"Well, no doubt she will recover," I said.
He pipped a nothing with relief, his lips unwreathed, his teeth shone out happily, and he said: "Oh, well, everything works out nicely in the end, if only things be premeditated by men of grasp and vigour. I assure you, the longer I live the more I see it—the supremacy of mind in the world. When I was a wild chap of seventeen I said to myself one night: 'go to, now, I will be a man: I will be grand, I will govern my passions, and have a hand in history.' And so said, so done. I did it! here you see me now, I did it very well, very well, oh yes, here I am. Mind is everything. Look at Mr Edwards, now—nice fellow, powerful fellow, sharp as a falchion! You know, of course, that the Lords have just virtually thrown out Diseased Persons? Tell me now which of the two you think will come off the victor in this duel between Edwards and the archbishop."
"Who can win against the grain of an archbishop under a régime of miracles, Baron Kolár?" I asked.
"What!" said he, eyeing me sternly from top to toe, "but is there to be no term to the insolence of the Church? Remember that this plan of sterilising diseased persons is no new thing: during twenty years it has been under discussion; in Austria, I assure you, if it had not been for the miracles, diseased persons would at present be consigned to the lethal chamber; but this most moderate bill only ensures their sterilisation. Everywhere such a measure is called for; it is in the very gist of our age; and now when Mr Edwards, by a travail of Hercules, has driven it through his House with a grim majority of twelve—earnest fellow, grand fellow—are we to see his pearl trampled under foot by a herd of bishops? But you shall not see that. I forecast that the bill will be sent back to the Lords a second and a third time, and in the end Edwards will win—oh yes, he will win."