Entering the room on tiptoe, she gave her uncle her mother’s message, and then stealing up to Rose, wound her arms round her neck, and laying her soft, warm cheek caressingly against the white, thin face of her teacher, wept her last adieu. They would never, never meet again, for ere the summer flowers were faded, one would be safely in the bosom of the Good Shepherd, who would lead her in green pastures, and beside the still waters of the better land.
“Bury her under the tall magnolia, a little ways from father,” was Jessie’s last injunction to Dr. Clayton, whose tears burst forth afresh, for not till then had he thought how he must leave her alone in that far south land—many miles away from her native hills, and that to him would be denied the solace of weeping over her early grave.
It was in vain that Mr. Delafield attempted to dissuade his sister from going. She would not listen, for their lives, she said, were all endangered by remaining in town, and as several other families were going to leave, she should follow their example—then bidding him hasten to them the moment Rose was dead, she entered her carriage and was driven rapidly away, followed by Halbert and two or three negroes on horseback. Unfeeling as this proceeding seemed to Richard, he still experienced a sensation of relief at the absence of the family, and thinking they would probably be safer at “The Pines” than at Cedar Grove, he returned to the chamber above, where Rose still lay, in the same deathlike unconsciousness, perfectly still save when a movement of the head, or a faint moan, told how she suffered. Everything had been done for her which could be done, and now there was naught for them to do but to wait and watch, which they did in perfect silence—Dr. Clayton, with his head bowed upon the pillow, while Mr. Delafield leaned against the wall, with compressed lips, and eyes dark as midnight, fastened upon the white, still face before him.
The clock in the hall struck the hour of eleven, and then, with a feeble moan, the sick girl withdrew her hand from beneath the covering, and when the stern man took it within his own he forced back an exclamation of joy, for it was moist with perspiration! There was hope, and his first impulse was to tell the good news to his companion, but the demon, which all the morning he had hugged to his bosom, whispered, “not now—let him suffer yet a little longer!” Soon, however, casting this thought aside as unworthy of him, he said, “Look up, Dr. Clayton, she is better. She may live. See!” and lifting the damp hair from her brow, he pointed to the dewy drops which stood thickly upon it.
“Thank Heaven!” was Dr. Clayton’s exclamation, and bending down, he said, “Rose, my precious Rose—she will live, and you have saved her,” he continued advancing towards the dark statue, whose hand he pressed to his lips. “To you the credit is due, for you worked when despair had rendered me powerless to do, but now I am strong. I am myself again, and if I have any skill it shall be exerted in her behalf.”
There was a curl on Richard Delafield’s lip—a blur before his eyes, and an icy chill at his heart, which prevented him from answering. Bitter were the thoughts which crowded upon him, and which he strove to put away. If she lived, would it not be in a measure owing to the efficient means he had employed—and why should he wish to save her? Would he not rather see her dead? It was an evil spirit which counselled with him thus, but ere long the noble nature of Richard Delafield conquered, and when at last her eyes unclosed, and turned towards Dr. Clayton, whose name she breathed, asking for her bridal dress, he looked on calmly while his rival kissed her again and again, telling her she should yet wear it and be his bride, but when he saw how she shuddered at these words, feebly answering, “No, no. Have they not told you that I cannot be your bride, for another has come between us?” a thrill of joy ran through his frame, but soon passed away as he thought it was merely the vagary of a disordered mind.
All that day and night they stood over her, applying the remedies said to be most efficient in cases of the kind, and when the next morning came she was unquestionably better, though still in great danger from a tendency of the disease to the lungs, which, however, was less to be feared than its return to the brain. Very carefully and tenderly they watched her, and had not Mr. Delafield been blinded by her supposed love for another, he must have seen how much more readily she took things from him than from Dr. Clayton, following him with her eyes whenever he moved away, and seeming much more quiet when he was at her side. By the close of the third day she was nearly free from the brain fever, but much fear was felt by Dr. Clayton lest it should assume the typhoid form, which it did ere long, and then for three weeks she raved in wild delirium, driving Richard Delafield from her presence, shuddering when he came near, and begging of Dr. Clayton, whom she called her brother Charlie, “to send the black man with his ugly face away.”
This state of affairs was almost intolerable to Richard, who, if he had loved Rose before, felt that she was tenfold dearer to him now, and so, though he dared not come in her sight when awake, he watched by her when she slept, standing over her hour after hour, and enduring with almost superhuman strength the care which Dr. Clayton could hardly be said to share, so absorbed was he in grief at the thoughts of losing her at last. Thus the days wore on until her frenzy abated, and she sank into a state of apathy from which nothing could rouse her, not even the sight of Richard Delafield, from whom she no longer shrank, but for whom she seemed to have conceived a kind of pity, asking him sometimes “if he hated her because she did not love him, and telling him how hard she had tried to do so, but could not, and that he must go away and leave her alone!” And all this while it never occurred to him that she fancied he was Dr. Clayton, though he did marvel at her never mentioning her affianced husband, in whose arms she would fall asleep, and whose hand she would kiss, calling him Charlie, and asking if he had come to carry her home.
Matters were in this state when one day, towards the dusk of evening, he was surprised by the appearance of Halbert, who said that the cholera, had broken out at the Pines, and he must come immediately, adding further, that his mother and Ada had both had it, that several of the blacks were dead, and that the man, who two days before had been sent to Cedar Grove, had died upon the road. Greatly alarmed for the safety of his people, Mr. Delafield started at once for the Pines, whither, in another chapter, we will follow him.