He stroked her hair tenderly.
'My weakness might yield—my true best self never. I know Whom I have believed. Oh, my darling, be content. Your misery, your prayers hold me back from God—from that truth and that trust which can alone be honestly mine. Submit, my wife! Leave me in God's hands.'
She raised her head. His eyes were bright with fever, his lips trembling, his whole look heavenly. She bowed herself again with a quiet burst of tears, and an indescribable self-abasement. They had had their last struggle, and once more he had conquered! Afterwards the cloud lifted from him. Depression and irritation disappeared. It seemed to her often as though he lay already on the breast of God; even her wifely love grew timid and awestruck.
Yet he did not talk much of immortality, of reunion. It was like a scrupulous child that dares not take for granted more than its father has allowed it to know. At the same time, it was plain to those about him that the only realities to him in a world of shadows were God—love—the soul.
One day he suddenly caught Catherine's hands, drew her face to him, and studied it with his glowing and hollow eyes, as though he would draw it into his soul.
'He made it,' he said hoarsely, as he let her go—'this love—this yearning. And in life He only makes us yearn that He may satisfy. He cannot lead us to the end and disappoint the craving He Himself set in us. No, no—could you—could I—do it? And He, the source of love, or justice——'
Flaxman arrived a few days afterwards. Edmondson had started for London the night before, leaving Elsmere better again, able to drive and even walk a little, and well looked after by a local doctor of ability. As Flaxman, tramping up behind his carriage, climbed the long hill to El Biar, he saw the whole marvellous place in a white light of beauty—the bay, the city, the mountains, oliveyard and orange-grove, drawn in pale tints on luminous air. Suddenly, at the entrance of a steep and narrow lane, he noticed a slight figure standing—a parasol against the sun.
'We thought you would like to be shown the short cut up the hill,' said Rose's voice, strangely demure and shy. 'The man can drive round.'