Perhaps it was his weakness which appealed to Victoria’s womanly heart. Perhaps it was the strong love which even in his most agonizing moments of pain, he never lost for “his angel.” In all those weary weeks he never called for Victoria; he always spoke of her as if she had gone away or was indeed an angel. To him Victoria was his mother, and her touch soothed him when nothing else would, and many times he pleaded with her to intercede with Victoria in his behalf. “She knows I adore her,” he would cry. “Mother, she is angry with me. I cannot bear those reproachful eyes forever fixed upon me. Tell her I did it because I loved her so. Tell her nothing, however bad it might have been, that she could ever do, would have turned my love from her. Ask her to forgive. I know she will; she always had such a tender little heart. Tell her I thought it no sin at first, because it brought her within my arms. My arms which are empty now. Ask her if she remembers the night of the ball, when she told me that she loved me, or was beginning to love me. ’Twas then I realized that heaven I had never expected to reach. Oh, God, that night. Will it ever come back to me?”
Victoria buried her head in the pillow. “My heart is breaking,” she cried, as the doctor lifted her wasted form as if it had been a child. “Doctor, give me something to make me sleep. I have not slept for four days or nights. If I might sleep to never waken more, how happy I should be.”
“Think of your child, Mrs. Willing,” replied the doctor. “Think of all those who are leaning upon you; who would be lost without you. You have proven yourself one of a thousand in this severe trial. Be brave a little while longer. Why did you not tell me of this insomnia? Of course I will give you an opiate, and when you shall awaken, life will have put on an entirely different hue, and there will also be a change in Andrew for better or for worse. See, he sleeps. It will be either death or life. Let us pray to God now, this instant. Which shall it be?”
Victoria, almost distracted by the fiery trial which she was undergoing, looked at the sleeper with eyes of love. Then, raising those eyes to heaven, she cried: “Death! Merciful Father, in Thine infinite pity, Thou who knowest the frailties of the human heart and who chastises only by love, let it be death which shall come to him who holds my heart and will not let it go, for if it be life, what will become of us, who are so weak?”
The doctor raised her from her knees and bore her to a couch. “God moves in a mysterious way,” he said, gently stroking the beating veins in her temples. “He does not always answer our prayers direct. Come, say with me the Lord’s Prayer. It covers everything which we need. Will you say it?”
“Yes,” replied Victoria, her eyes still upon the sleeping man; and with her hands clasped within those of her untiring, faithful friend, she repeated with him the simple yet restful prayer, which has brought peace to so many aching hearts. As the doctor repeated “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven,” Victoria’s voice faltered, and, bowing her head upon the physician’s arm, she cried: “No, no, I cannot say that. It is my will that I wish, not His. How can I say it, when my heart cries all the time for death, oblivion, forgetfulness? God’s will may be to have him live. What, then, must be our future? Ah, no, I cannot, dare not say what my heart rebels against. Think you that I have the strength to live apart from him who draws me by a power I cannot resist? Ah, no, dear friend; the spirit may be ever so willing, but the flesh is woefully weak. There is no safety for either of us but in death.”
For a time the doctor allowed her to indulge in the passionate grief, which shook her frail form as a mighty storm sways a tender sapling. Then, wetting a cloth with a strong æsthetic, he laid it over her face, and presently her sobs ceased and she lay quiet. Removing the cloth, he took her in his arms as he would a tired child, and laid her beside Andrew. “If she awakens, she will remain quiet, knowing that the least move may prove fatal to the invalid,” he said, watching the pale, worn face. “Poor child! Her burden may become greater than she can bear, for I notice a change in Andrew. I think he will live.”
It was hours before a single motion from either disturbed the physician’s reverie. Then Andrew, with a deep sigh, opened his eyes. They encountered the doctor’s. He approached the bed, placing his finger upon his lips to enjoin silence, but Andrew could not have even whispered. Keeping his eyes open was an exertion, and he soon closed them; but in those few seconds the doctor had seen in the questioning eyes the light of returning reason, and with a murmured “thank God,” he set about preparing a cordial against the time when it should be needed, for now he knew that Andrew had passed the crisis, and with good care would live.
All physicians take a certain professional pride in having been instrumental in saving a patient for whom they have labored, expecting nothing but death. So it was with this good doctor. It had seemed a hopeless case from the beginning. A case which held no promise of a reward for his untiring efforts, and so, perhaps, his joy was greater because this man’s life had been given to him in answer to his prayer. For he had prayed that Andrew might live, just as fervently as Victoria prayed that he might die. He foresaw a serious complication of affairs, if Andrew should die. Much more serious than if he lived, especially so for little Mary, upon whose innocent head would descend her father’s sin. When Victoria should awaken refreshed in mind and body, he would present all these things to her in a light which her clear common sense must acknowledge as being the only way out of this almost insurmountable difficulty. A way in which the family name could be saved from disgrace; in which the dying man upstairs (for his days were numbered) could peacefully pass away; in which the little child who had done no wrong could be shielded from the world’s cruel tongue, which stabs unmercifully from the back, whilst exhibiting a smiling face.
All this the kind friend determined should Victoria be made to see. As for himself when his duty should have been done; when there remained no more for him to do, he would again take up the monotonous routine of a country physician’s life; not without a scar upon his heart, however. These few weeks of close companionship with a woman superior in all things to any he had ever known, had been dangerous in the extreme, and he was conscious of it. He was a confirmed bachelor of fifty years. His boast among his own sex was, that he had never been in love, nor had he ever seen the woman who could tempt him to change his happy state, for what he was sure would be a most unhappy one. He had been the Willing’s family physician for eighteen years. He had been present at every death, at every birth, within that time. He had been a trusted and tried friend of the family outside his professional capacity. He had looked upon Victoria almost as a father might have done, but he found as the days went by, that he had more than a father’s love for the sad, sweet-faced woman, who bore her burdens so uncomplainingly, and who was living up to her faith so far as the light had been shown her.