He had come too late! there was no Lally now in the silent room; there would be no Lally in any room which his feet might enter for evermore.
CHAPTER VII.
IN BERRIE DOWN LANE.
It was all over! Skill could do nothing more for her. Love itself was impotent now.
They brought flowers, and strewed them on her; but their bright colours, their sweet perfume, could delight the child no longer. They passed into the room where she lay a score times a day; but Lally never said, “Who’s ’at?” or weakly put out her hand to welcome one of them.
Bessie might steal in at night to look once again, and still once more, at the child she had loved so much; but Lally needed no one to sing her to sleep now—she had ceased wearying for her old playmate, and tears for her loss could trickle down her little white face no more.
Even Arthur, who stealthily and like a criminal watched his opportunity of visiting the chamber at times when no one should witness his grief—even he, with all his sorrow and contrition, could not win a word from Lally, whom he had so persistently, until the very end, indeed, declared to be in no danger.
Not from any evil intention, but merely because his vanity and his weakness were great, he had suffered himself to be led away by the still beautiful woman who had been the love of his youth. He had neglected Heather in days which he now understood must have been very dark to her; he had seen little of his child, who lay before him with her formerly eager face cold and fixed, with her limbs still, with her hands at rest, with the bright flowers already fading on her breast, very quiet—oh! so perfectly still.
What was Heather’s grief to his—her passionate woman’s sorrow to his? She had sat with the child, nursed her, heard every word the lips now so mute had uttered, supplied every want the body, which now needed nothing, had fretfully desired. Her grief might be very terrible, very hard to bear, but there was no remorse mingled with it. Her tears might flow unceasingly, but there was no bitterness in them. She could talk of her lost one, and receive sympathy from every person around; but Arthur—he had rarely seen Lally—he had been glad to forget her illness—he had listened to false words of comfort, and now, when his eyes were opened, it was only to look on—death.
An awful repentance had seized him when Alick, having at length succeeded in tracing his brother to one of the theatres, whither he was gone with Mr. and Mrs. Croft to see a new piece which at the time chanced to be creating a sensation, brought him out of the building with one sentence—
“If you want to see Lally alive, come home immediately!”