There was no answering Good-night, only a faint thud and rustle. Sir Roland did not guess what he had done as he rang off and hung the receiver up. And Lynette, coming into the consulting-room, noiselessly as a pale moonbeam, found a big galumphing girl she loved lying huddled between the chair and table, with her white face pressed against the spot worn threadbare by the Doctor's feet.
Coincidence, you say, perhaps. Well, but what is Coincidence? Is it a Dust-wind careering over the Desert in the neighbourhood of the Pyramids, playing with straw and twigs and dead locusts' wings, and one stray fragment of printed paper, as a Mounted Division of the British Expeditionary Force encamped upon the slope not far from Gizeh, ride out with the dawn to exercise their horses on the plain that is partly flooded by the Nile? Or is it the ragged quarter-sheet torn from an English newspaper, that wraps itself about the spurred ankle of the big blond young Englishman who rides the vicious chestnut mare?
Long lines of horses marching in threes for miles, black and coffee-coloured natives in flowing jubbehs mixed up with tanned young British Centaurs in sun-helmets and khaki shorts—and the rag of paper clings to the leg of the one man there whom its news concerns. She who is dearer than all save Honour is once more a free woman,—and his faith and constancy are to meet their reward. His letter lies before me; a sentence pencilled more blackly than the rest stands out upon the yellowish paper:
"If this be accident it is incredible. If Design, it is miraculous. And I had rather thank Heaven for a miracle vouchsafed than owe even such happiness—to Chance."
When the deep swoon gave place to semi-consciousness, the pale lips uttered nothing but broken words. Locked away safely behind them was the glorious news that would have changed two people's lives. Thus Lynette was still ignorant of her own great happiness, when having helped Patrine upstairs to her room and put her tenderly to bed, she dismissed Mrs. Keyse to her own slumbers, and took her place beside Patrine's pillow, listening to the sighing breaths that were growing deeper and fuller, keenly alert for the sound of the Doctor's latch-key and the Doctor's step in the hall.
It was close upon the smallest hour. Something had detained Saxham. Sitting in the darkened room beside the long prone shape beneath the coverings, Lynette was free to lean her head against the back of the chair she sat in and yield herself to the bitter sweetness of memories of her lost boy.
What the sorrow of Shakespeare wrought in deathless lines no halting pen like mine dare strive to portray. Enough that the beloved little ghost that haunted the woman whose heart was breaking, was closer than ever to Lynette on this night. All day the sweet obsession had thrust itself between Bawne's mother and solid, tangible things. The red-gold sheen of the boyish head, the gay blue challenge of the laughing eyes, the coaxing tones of the treble voice had tortured the senses they deceived. She had thrust him away with both hands, for ordinary, commonplace duties claimed, and yielding led the way to madness. He had come back again and again, to be driven away once more. Now that her hands lay idle in her lap—now that she was withdrawn from the world and its realities, the beloved little ghost returned and had his will with her.
Sitting in the haunted gloom, a strange conviction came to Lynette. This was not Grief, travestying in the figure of the absent, but a visitation from the World Unseen.... Bawne was dead, and had been dragged back from the threshold of the Beyond by her own unbridled yearnings. Could there be a punishment more terrible than this? Only those who have loved and lost, and clinging to their faith in a Future Life, strive to bear patiently the burden of bereavement, can comprehend the torture of this woman in this hour.
The Presence grew more torturingly tangible. The empty shell of the house that had been Bawne's home was full of his callings, his movements, his play, his laughter. She heard his quick soft breathing behind her chair in the darkness. Once she could have vowed that a hard little boyish hand brushed against her cheek. Then she was alone once more, except for the unconscious sleeper. And then the torture began all over again.
Bawne was coming home, late, from the Hendon Flying Ground. The long months of misery—the horror of the War—had been a dreadful dream. She heard the long br'r' of the electric hall-bell under the impetuous insistent finger—the small scurry of his entrance, a squawk from the maid who answered night-calls—a whispered word or two, and the clumping of the heavy little brogues upon the stairs. Would he trip at the corner where he always stubbed his toe? she wondered—and she plainly heard him stumble. Then her hair stiffened upon her head, and a long shudder rippled through her. The little clumping brogues had stopped before Patrine's bedroom door.