“Remember, you must not hesitate, or the golden chance will pass beyond recall, and I shall go back whence I came, never more to return—never more to clasp you, dearest one, until you die too, and come to me (are you cold, that you shudder so?)—and be with me for always. Listen, listen!�
As she lifted her hand the greatest of all the great clock voices of London spoke out the midnight hour. As other voices answered from far and near Daymond shuddered, and put his dead love from him, and rose up trembling and ghastly pale.
They moved together to the window, and stood looking out. The weather was about to change; the snow was melting, the thaw drip plashed heavily from roof gutters and balconies, cornices and window ledges. As she laid her hand once more upon his shoulder the stars began to fade out one by one, and in a little while from then the eastward horizon quivered with the first faint throes of dawn.
“Wish!� she cried. “Now! now! before it is too late!� She moved as if to throw herself again upon his breast; but he thrust her from him with resolute hands that trembled no more.
“I wish,� he said very distinctly, “to be Sir Robert Daymond, Baronet, and President of the —— before the year is out!�
She fell away from him, and waned, and became unsubstantial and shadowy like the ghost she was, and unlike the thing of flesh and blood she had seemed before. Nothing remained to her of lifelikeness but the scorn and anger, the anguish and reproach of her great eyes.
“Only the dead are faithful to Love—because they are dead,� she said. “The living live on—and forget! They may remember sometimes to regret us—beat their breasts and call upon our names—but they shudder if we answer back across the distance; and if we should offer to come back, ‘Return!’ they say! ‘go and lie down in the comfortable graves we have made you; there is no room for you in your old places any more!’ They told me I should be sorry for coming; but I would not listen, I had such confidence. I am wiser now! Good-bye!�
A long sigh fluttered by him in the semi-obscurity, like a bird with a broken wing. There was a rattling of curtain rings, the dull sough of falling tapestry, and the opening and closing of a door. She was gone! And Daymond, waking from strangely dreamful slumbers to the cheerlessness of dying embers and burned-out candle, rang the bell for his servant, and ordered lights. A few minutes later saw him, perfectly dressed, stepping into his cab.
“Chesterfield Gardens, Mayfair,� he said, giving the direction to his valet for transference to the groom.
“Beg pardon, sir, but Lady Mary Fraber’s servant is still waiting!� The man pointed back to the house.