His head fell back wearily on his pillow, and his lack-lustre eyes rolled restlessly in his head as if in search for something unattainable. There was something really pitiable in the wretched man’s helplessness,—and in the neglected state of his room, where medicine bottles, cups and glasses were littered about in confusion, and where everything showed carelessness and utter disregard of the commonest cleanliness and comfort. But no touch of compunction moved his wife to any consciousness of regret or compassion. On the contrary, she assumed an almost sublime air of majestic tolerance and injured innocence.
“Oh, of course!” she said resignedly, “of course it’s my fault! I ought to have known you would say that. It’s the way of a man. He always blames the woman who has been good to him—who has waited upon him hand and foot—who has worked for him night and day—who has——” here she began to grow hysterical—“who has loved him—who has been the mother of his son—who has sacrificed herself entirely to her home! Yes—it is always the way! Nothing but ingratitude! But you are ill, and I will not blame you—Oh no, Jim—I’ll not blame you, poor man!—you will be sorry—sorry for being so cruel to your good wife who has been so kind to you!”
With a sort of fat chuckling sob the estimable woman retired—not to weep, oh no! but merely to eat some eggs and macaroni, a dish to which she was particularly partial, and which had consoled her often before for the wrongs inflicted on her as the chief martyr of her sex.
And the Major returned to Miss Letty with the account of his embassy, whereat the gentle soul laughed a little, though there was a sadness in her laughter. All her old affection for Boy as a child had come back in full force for Boy as a young man, now that she knew all the story of his griefs and temptations. For after the affair of the bank notes, the Major had judged it best to tell her of the lad’s expulsion from Sandhurst, and when she knew everything, her pity and tenderness for him knew no bounds. Her whole heart went out to him—and she had but one wish—to see him again and lay her hands in a farewell blessing on his head. “Just once before I die,” she thought, for she knew in her own soul that death could not be far off—“just to kiss him and say I understand how he was tempted, poor fellow!—and how heartily I forgive him and pray for him.”
The Major knew of this secret longing of hers, though she seldom spoke of it, and it was in his great desire to gratify her that he sought everywhere for some clue to Boy’s whereabouts, but in vain. A police raid on the “Marquis” de Gramont’s gambling den had effectually cleared that rats’ nest out of London, so there were no difficulties left there by means of which Boy might have been traceable. Anxious and disturbed in mind, the good Major rambled up and down the Strand and all the bye-streets appertaining thereto, under the vague impression that he should perhaps find Boy reduced to selling matches or bootlaces at a corner, or coming out of a cheap eating-house,—“for,” said the Major feelingly, “he will have to get a dinner somehow or somewhere. One of the chief disadvantages of life on this earth is that none of us can do without feeding. If a world were invented where the creatures in it could exist simply by breathing in the air and drinking in the light, it would be perfection—there would be no cause for quarrelling, strife, or envyings of one another, though I expect some of the fashionable ladies would even then keep things pretty lively by quarrelling over their lovers and their gowns.”
Violet Morrison was away from London just at this time. Her course of study in surgical nursing, followed with the most intense and painstaking care, had made her an invaluable assistant to two or three of the greatest surgeons in London—and “Nurse Morrison,” as she was called, was always in demand. She was no fancy follower of her profession. She had not taken it up for the express purpose of flirting with the doctors, and inveigling one of them into marrying her. She had, however, grown into a very beautiful woman, and many a clever and brilliant ‘rising man’ cast longing eyes of admiration at her fair face and graceful form, as she moved with noiseless step and soft pitying eyes through a hospital ward, soothing pain by her touch and inspiring courage by her smile. But she set herself steadfastly against every hint of love or marriage, and never swerved for an hour or a moment from the lines of work and duty she had elected to walk in. Her only personal anxiety was for Miss Letty, and willingly would she have stayed with her beloved old friend, had not Miss Letty herself refused to be “coddled,” as she expressed it.
“If you don’t go and do your work, child, I shall fancy I am in immediate danger,” she said with a smile, “and I shall die right off before you have time to look round! Go where your duty calls you,—I shall be ever so much better and happier for knowing that you are where you ought to be.”
“I ought to be with you, I think,” said Violet tenderly. “My first duty is to you.”
Miss Letty patted her hand kindly,
“Your first duty is to help those who are in instant need, my dear,” she said. “Be quite happy about me,—I am really feeling much better and stronger, and I don’t think I shall go away from you just yet—not quite just yet. I think I shall live”—and her eyes softened tenderly—“to see Boy again.”