“Yes, me lord,” he answered stolidly.
“And she?” the fever burned on Clancarty’s cheeks, his eyes shone; “how did she take it?”
“Very quiet loike, me lord,” replied Denis bluntly, “she wanted to know what hed happened, but I dared not tell her ladyship.”
“She inquired, though? she was anxious?” asked the earl eagerly.
Denis was stubborn. “Me lord, she asked what hed happened—nothing more. She’s a great lady, sir, and as proud as anny quane.”
The wounded lover sighed and turned again to the wall: here was no consolation, and in his bitterness he called her heartless. The desolate place, his almost exhausted resources, his painful wound, all combined to shake even his proud resolution; he was lonely and he was desperate. In his fevered brain rose many visions of Betty, the beautiful, the careless, charming Betty that he had known. What heart there was beneath that beautiful exterior he did not know; but this he knew—he was an outcast from home and friends, a desperate and forsaken man and dangerously wounded. He was no novice in affairs of this kind and knew well the nature of his hurt and what lack of care would do for it. His life passed in quick review before him; its ambitions, its wild adventures, its dark spots of reckless dissipations, and now this end—this wretched, thwarted, forsaken end—creeping away like a wounded beast to die alone. It might well bring bitterness to so proud and daring a spirit as his. He cursed his fate, but it is to be feared that he did not pray. His religion had been a matter of convenience, like the religion of many gay young soldiers of his time. It failed him now and she failed him too,—the woman who had taken such possession of his heart and swept him out of the common way into a higher passion. He loved her—and she despised him. He groaned sharply as if in bodily pain; the faithful Irishman was at his side in a moment, but he waved him away. His soul was wrestling with despair and with hunger for the sight of her. He, a strong man and a proud one, in that hour of physical agony and loneliness, longed to see her, to hear her voice before he died—if die he must, yet he would have died rather than send for her—such was his pride.
The night wore on; the horses stamping restlessly in the shed, the wind increasing in violence until the old house creaked, quivering like a broken reed. Denis sat staring at the fire, his honest face distorted with grief and now and then a slow tear creeping down his furrowed cheek. The wound was a desperate one, and counting all the things against the patient,—exposure, lack of nursing and food and comforts, the man did not believe he would live, and he loved him like a son; he had carried him on his shoulder as a baby; he had taught the little lad to sit his horse and use his sword, and he had followed him in Ireland, in France, in Flanders, through weal and woe—to this! Poor Denis, he too had his night of tears and lamentations.
Toward midnight Clancarty’s mind wandered a little and he babbled like a child of the green turf of Ireland and the streams where he had paddled barefoot, and of the wild birds overhead. He talked of battles and sieges and at last of her, of Betty, and Denis cursed her in his heart as their evil angel, the lodestar that had drawn the young earl to his fate. Now and then through the night the wounded man called for water, but toward morning he fell asleep, and Denis dropped on his knees, praying to all the saints to send healing on the wings of that fitful slumber.
But with the night the delirium and the weakness of spirit passed together. At daybreak the earl opened his eyes and looked quietly into Denis’s worn face. He smiled, the old reckless smile, if somewhat weaker and paler than usual. He groped feebly under his pillow and handed the man his purse.
“A small store, Denis,” he said, “but ’tis yours now, to do with as you can. If I die—ah, you must even bury me here, I suppose, though I long for Irish soil to cover me! For the rest—go home, Denis, take no risks for my sake. Faith, a dead man will not need you.”