“Oh, sir,” she cried, her eyes beginning once more to flow, her speech interrupted by little sobs. “Maybe I did wrong to speak of a claim. I’m not educated to argue with a gentleman. Maybe we have no claim. But if it’s not by right, oh, Mr. Canning, won’t you let your heart be touched by pity? She don’t know what I’m saying, poor dear. She’s not one to beg and pray for herself, as I’m doing for her. Oh, sir, she’s so young! She’s so lone in this world,—not a friend to stand by her, nor a house to take her in! You are the nearest to her of any one that’s left in this world. She hasn’t a relation,—not one so near as you,—oh!” she cried, with a sudden thought, turning quickly round upon me, “this gentleman’s your son! Now I think of it, it’s not your relation she is, but his, through his mother! That’s nearer, nearer! Oh, sir! you’re young; your heart should be more tender. Here is my young lady that has no one in the world to look to her. Your own flesh and blood; your mother’s cousin,—your mother’s—”
My father called to her to stop, with a voice of thunder. “Philip, leave us at once. It is not a matter to be discussed with you.”
And then in a moment it became clear to me what it was. It had been with difficulty that I had kept myself still. My breast was laboring with the fever of an impulse poured into me, more than I could contain. And now for the first time I knew why. I hurried towards him, and took his hand, though he resisted, into mine. Mine were burning, but his like ice: their touch burnt me with its chill, like fire. “This is what it is?” I cried. “I had no knowledge before. I don’t know now what is being asked of you. But, father, understand! You know, and I know now, that some one sends me,—some one—who has a right to interfere.”
He pushed me away with all his might. “You are mad,” he cried. “What right have you to think—? Oh, you are mad—mad! I have seen it coming on—”
The woman, the petitioner, had grown silent, watching this brief conflict with the terror and interest with which women watch a struggle between men. She started and fell back when she heard what he said, but did not take her eyes off me, following every movement I made. When I turned to go away, a cry of indescribable disappointment and remonstrance burst from her, and even my father raised himself up and stared at my withdrawal, astonished to find that he had overcome me so soon and easily. I paused for a moment, and looked back on them, seeing them large and vague through the mist of fever. “I am not going away,” I said. “I am going for another messenger,—one you can’t gainsay.”
My father rose. He called out to me threateningly, “I will have nothing touched that is hers. Nothing that is hers shall be profaned—”
I waited to hear no more; I knew what I had to do. By what means it was conveyed to me I cannot tell; but the certainty of an influence which no one thought of calmed me in the midst of my fever. I went out into the hall, where I had seen the young stranger waiting. I went up to her and touched her on the shoulder. She rose at once, with a little movement of alarm, yet with docile and instant obedience, as if she had expected the summons. I made her take off her veil and her bonnet, scarcely looking at her, scarcely seeing her, knowing how it was: I took her soft, small, cool, yet trembling hand into mine; it was so soft and cool,—not cold,—it refreshed me with its tremulous touch. All through I moved and spoke like a man in a dream; swiftly, noiselessly, all the complications of waking life removed; without embarrassment, without reflection, without the loss of a moment. My father was still standing up, leaning a little forward as he had done when I withdrew; threatening, yet terror-stricken, not knowing what I might be about to do, when I returned with my companion. That was the one thing he had not thought of. He was entirely undecided, unprepared. He gave her one look, flung up his arms above his head, and uttered a distracted cry, so wild that it seemed the last outcry of nature,—“Agnes!” then fell back like a sudden ruin, upon himself, into his chair.
I had no leisure to think how he was, or whether he could hear what I said. I had my message to deliver. “Father,” I said, laboring with my panting breath, “it is for this that heaven has opened, and one whom I never saw, one whom I know not, has taken possession of me. Had we been less earthly, we should have seen her—herself, and not merely her image. I have not even known what she meant. I have been as a fool without understanding. This is the third time I have come to you with her message, without knowing what to say. But now I have found it out. This is her message. I have found it out at last.” There was an awful pause,—a pause in which no one moved or breathed. Then there came a broken voice out of my father’s chair. He had not understood, though I think he heard what I said. He put out two feeble hands. “Phil—I think I am dying—has she—has she come for me?” he said.
We had to carry him to his bed. What struggles he had gone through before I cannot tell. He had stood fast, and had refused to be moved, and now he fell,—like an old tower, like an old tree. The necessity there was for thinking of him saved me from the physical consequences which had prostrated me on a former occasion. I had no leisure now for any consciousness of how matters went with myself.
His delusion was not wonderful, but most natural. She was clothed in black from head to foot, instead of the white dress of the portrait. She had no knowledge of the conflict, of nothing but that she was called for, that her fate might depend on the next few minutes. In her eyes there was a pathetic question, a line of anxiety in the lids, an innocent appeal in the looks. And the face the same: the same lips, sensitive, ready to quiver; the same innocent, candid brow; the look of a common race, which is more subtle than mere resemblance. How I knew that it was so I cannot tell, nor any man. It was the other, the elder,—ah, no! not elder; the ever young, the Agnes to whom age can never come, she who they say was the mother of a man who never saw her,—it was she who led her kinswoman, her representative, into our hearts.