"Come—come—come!" she cried; "he is dying!"
She drew him with her by main force into the house—up the stairs—into the chamber of death. But Death had been there before them. A dead man lay upon the bed now, rigid and white. A second cry arose—a cry of almost more than woman's woe. And with it Inez Catheron clasped the dead man in her arms, and covered his face with her raining tears.
The son stood beside her like a figure of stone, gazing down at that marble face. For the first time in his life he was Sir Victor Catheron.
CHAPTER XX.
HOW THE WEDDING-DAY BEGAN.
Six days later, Sir Victor Catheron and his aunt came home. These six days had passed very quietly, very pleasantly, to Edith. She was not in the least lonely; the same sense of relief in her lover's absence was upon her as she had felt at Torquay. It seemed to her she breathed freer when a few score miles lay between them. She had her pet books and music, and she read and played a great deal; she had her long, solitary rambles through the leafy lanes and quiet roads, her long drives in the little pony phaeton her future husband had given her. Sometimes Lady Gwendoline was her companion; oftener she was quite alone. She was not at all unhappy now; she was just drifting passively on to the end. She had chosen, and was quietly abiding by her choice; that was all. She caught herself thinking, sometimes, that since she felt so much happier and freer in Sir Victor's brief absences, how was she going to endure all the years that must be passed at his side? No doubt she would grow used to him after a while, as we grow used and reconciled to everything earthly.
One circumstance rather surprised her: during those six days of absence she had received but one note from her lover. She had counted at least upon the post fetching her one or two per day, as when at Torquay, but this time he wrote her but once. An odd, incoherent, hurried sort of note, too—very brief and unsatisfactory, if she had had much curiosity on the subject of what was going on at St. John's Wood. But she had not. Whether his father lived or died, so that he never interfered with her claim to the title of Lady Catheron in the future, Miss Darrell cared very little. This hurried note briefly told her his father had died on the day of their arrival; that by his own request the burial place was to be Kensal Green, not the Catheron vaults; that the secret of his life and death was still to be kept inviolate; and that (in this part of the note he grew impassionedly earnest) their marriage was not to be postponed. On the third of October, as all had been arranged, it was still to take place. No other note followed. If Miss Darrell had been in love with her future husband, this profound silence must have wounded, surprised, grieved her. But she was not in love. He must be very much occupied, she carelessly thought, since he could not find time to drop her a daily bulletin—then dismissed the matter indifferently from her mind.
Late in the evening of the sixth day Sir Victor and Lady Helena returned home.
Edith stood alone awaiting them, dressed in black silk, and with soft white lace and ruby ornaments, and looking very handsome.
Her lover rushed in and caught her in his arms with a sort of rapturous, breathless delight.