“I had not better leave you, and I will not. It is but little I can do for you now, but let me have the satisfaction of doing that little. Say you will come—it is all I ask, we will manage everything else, if only you can bear to leave Hastings and come with us.”
“But I have so many belongings,” hesitated the other; “my cousin, and maid, and—and—have you mentioned the matter to Major Morrice?”
“Yes, and he has agreed to make Roundwood his head-quarters for the present too,” answered Phemie, cheerfully; but as she said this, Miss Derno looked first in the sweet face bent down over her, and then turned away and sighed.
Would it ever come to that?—when she was lying cold and dead—would Gordon Morrice grow in time to love Phemie, and would Phemie learn to love him? The possibility of such a result flashed upon the poor invalid’s mind in a moment; and if tears did blind her eyes, who can wonder?
She had loved the man, and he could never be anything to her now; but another might be much to him, and if that other should be Mrs. Stondon, why better Mrs. Stondon than anyone else, for then her memory would not quite pass away; they would think of her sometimes in the quiet eventide—remember the woman who had loved them both.
There is many an idea that seems unpleasant enough at first, which yet grows, as time passes by, familiar and agreeable; the face of a possible contingency appears strange when it looks in suddenly through the windows of our soul, but by degrees that strangeness wears off, and we become accustomed to its presence, and should miss it were it to leave its wonted place.
Our plans and our ideas come to seem to us finally like friends; we sketch them, we fill them in, we add a touch here, make some improvement there, and then, when we have finished and perfected them, we cannot bear to part with our ideals—cannot endure that the touch of reality should level our dream-castles with the ground.
Miss Derno found this to be the truth, at any rate. At first the idea of Phemie and Gordon Morrice growing near and dear to one another disturbed and troubled her; but as the days went by—as she beheld the objectless routine of Mrs. Stondon’s life—as she saw how the sorrows she had passed through were graven on her heart—how deep the iron had entered into her soul; as she watched her flitting hither and thither, anticipating every want of her sick visitor, and moving heaven and earth to compass her recovery, Miss Derno began to hope—she who had done with hope in this world for herself—that some day Phemie might marry Gordon Morrice, and put the irremediable past, with its sin, its suffering, its repentance, away from her like a garment which, having been worn, is laid aside for ever.
That Phemie should not marry again—that in the very prime of her life she should thrust hope and love and joy aside—that she should live for other people’s children, and preside over a desolate and lonely household, seemed to Miss Derno terrible, and she took many an occasion to talk to Mrs. Stondon about the past and about the future, trying her mind on various subjects, but finding that only two strings in the instrument returned their full tone to her delicate touch.
She would speak fully about the past, about her husband, about—well, there is no use in standing over nice in the terms one employs—her lover; repentance, and affection; her regret for her husband, her regard for Basil.