CHAPTER XVII
"Life is like a nest in the winter,
The heart of man is always cold therein."
Roumanian Folk Song.
The lawyer who was to have altered Lady Louisa's will was sent away as soon as he arrived. No one knew why she had telegraphed for him. She had had a second stroke, and with it the last vestige of power dropped from her numb hands. She was unable to speak, unable to move, unable even to die.
Janey sat by her for days together in a great compassion, not unmixed with shame. Every one, Roger included, thought she was overwhelmed by the catastrophe which had befallen her mother, and he made shy, clumsy attempts at consolation, little pattings on the back, invitations to "come out and have a look at the hay harvest." But Janey was stunned by the thought that she was in danger of losing not her mother but her Roger, had perhaps already lost him; and that her one friend Annette was unconsciously taking him from her. Her mother's bedside had become a refuge for the first time. As she sat hour after hour with Lady Louisa's cold hand in hers, it was in vain that she told herself that it was foolish, ridiculous, to attach importance to such a trivial incident as the fact that when Roger was actually at her door he should have made himself late by walking home with Annette. But she realized now that she had been vaguely anxious before that happened, that it had been a formless dread at the back of her mind which had nothing to do with her mother, which had made her feel that night of the choir practice as if she had reached the end of her strength. Is there any exhaustion like that which guards the steep, endless steps up to the shrine of love? Which of us has struggled as far as the altar and laid our offering upon it? Which of us faint-hearted pilgrims has not given up the attempt half-way? But Janey was not of these, not even to be daunted by a fear that had taken shape at last.
We all know that jealousy fabricates its own "confirmations strong as proofs of Holy Writ." But with Janey it was not so much suspicion as observation, that close observation born of love, which if it is once dislinked from love not even Sir Galahad could endure scathless. With steady eyes she dumbly watched her happiness grow dim and dimmer. Roger was her all, and he was leaving her. His very kindness might have warned her as to his real feeling for her, and it seemed to Janey as if for months she had been shutting her eyes forcibly against the truth.
There is a great deal of talk nowadays about losing the one we love, and that attractive personality generally turns out to be some sagacious stranger who has the agility to elude us in the crowd. But Roger was as much an integral part of Janey's life as Hulver was part of his. Janey's life had grown round Roger. Roger's had grown round Hulver.