Hester said nothing for a little; but the look of relief was clear. Alice on the farther side of the bed dropped her face in her hands. Was it not only forty-eight hours since, in Paris, Meynell had told her that he had received conclusive evidence of the Scotch marriage, and that Hester was merely Philip's victim, not his wife? Passionately her heart thanked him for the falsehood. She saw clearly that Hester's mortal wounds were not all bodily. She was dying partly of self-contempt, self-judgment. Meynell's strong words—his "noble lie"—had lifted, as it were, a fraction of the moral weight that was destroying her; had made a space—a freedom, in which the spirit could move.
So much Alice saw; blind meanwhile to the tragic irony of this piteous stress laid at such a moment, by one so lawless, on the social law!
Thenceforward the poor sufferer was touchingly gentle and amenable. Morphia had been given her liberally, and the relief was great. When the nurses came at midday, however, the pulse had already begun to fail. They could do nothing; and though within call, they left her mainly to those who loved her.
In the early afternoon she asked suddenly for the Communion, and Meynell administered it. The three women who were watching her received it with her. In Catharine's mind, as Meynell's hands brought her the sacred bread and wine, all thought of religious difference between herself and him had vanished, burnt away by sheer heat of feeling. There was no difference! Words became mere transparencies, through which shone the ineffable.
When it was over, Hester opened her eyes—"Uncle Richard!" The voice was only a whisper now. "You loved my father?"
"I loved him dearly—and you—and your mother—for his sake."
He stooped to kiss her cheek.
"I wonder what it'll be like"—she said, after a moment, with more strength—"beyond? How strange that—I shall know before you! Uncle Richard—I'm—I'm sorry!"
At that the difficult tears blinded him, and he could not reply. But she was beyond tears, concentrating all the last effort of the mind on the sheer maintenance of life. Presently she added:
"I don't hate—even Philip now. I—I forget him. Mother!" And again she clung to her mother's hand, feebly turning her face to be kissed.