'Do not talk of that,' said the other; 'what are friends for but to serve us when we need them?'
'And to forgive us when we wrong them?' said Maud, whose conscience was goading her to confession; 'I know I have behaved ill to you—to you and to everybody. Now I am going to try to do better, if only I can get the chance—if only God in His goodness will grant me that.'
'I am hopeful,' said Boldero, 'for both of you. Sutton, I feel, has something greater yet to do. We have often laughed and said that nothing can kill him. You know in cholera it is as much mind as body: courage, calmness, and determination are half the battle.'
'Then,' said Maud, with enthusiasm, faith, and hopefulness glowing in her face, 'I am sure he will do well. His body is his soul's servant, you cannot fancy how completely; it does its bidding as a matter of course. I do not think it would even die without his leave. Have you telegraphed to say that I am coming?'
'Yes, but leaving it to the doctors to tell him when they think best; or not at all, if they fear the intelligence will excite him. Very likely they will be afraid to do so.'
'They will do wrong,' said Maud, who knew her husband's temperament better even than Boldero; it will not agitate him, and it will make him resolve to live. He will live, I believe, if it is only in order to forgive me.'
'Do not say "to forgive,"' said the other, who, in a generously enthusiastic mood, began to think that Maud was pressing with undue severity against herself; 'to tell you all that you have been to him and all the sunshine you have brought into his life.'
'All I have been!' cried Maud, with a vehement remorse; 'I could tell him that best. You could tell him. I mean to tell him the first moment I can—and I am in an agony till I can do so. I have been mad, Mr. Boldero, or in a dream, I think, and you tried in vain to wake me. Now I am awake, and know the truth. All the things and people we have left behind are merely shadows, and I mistook them for realities; only one thing in the world is real for me: my love for my husband. Other people flatter and excite and amuse one, and one is carried away with all sorts of follies; but my heart never moves and never can. It is his and his only, and I never knew it fully till last night. My life, I find, is centred in his.'
'I pray God,' said Boldero devoutly, 'we may find him better; and somehow I believe we shall.'
A level stretch of valley lay before them, and allowed them to push sharply over the next five or six miles. By ten o'clock they arrived at their halting-place, where Boldero proposed that they should wait till the afternoon. Maud, however, was too restless to halt.