Thus 'twas granted me
To know he loved me to the depth and height
Of such large natures, ever competent
With grand horizons, by the land or sea,
To love's grand sunrise. Small spheres hold small fires,
But he loved largely.
Maud was inexpressibly shocked at her husband's appearance. Neither the telegrams nor the doctors' notes nor Boldero's description had in the faintest degree prepared her for what she saw. She had heard of death, and even seen it, but in its gentle, peaceful, unagonised aspect; she had seen illness, but in its milder mood, as it visits the European household: not the savage, destroying, desolating demon-angel that waves a sword across the cholera-stricken plain or city in the East. A sickness of a few days, a few hours, shatters the sufferer's frame, blurs out the familiar features, leaves the stalwart man a quivering skeleton, deadens the sense and clouds the strong mind with a deep, dreadful shadow of oblivion.
And to this stage Sutton had come. Maud, despite all entreaties and warnings, went straight to her husband's side and let the full horror of the scene take possession of her soul. It wrung her very heart to see him—the man whom, after all, she loved with a passion which, if sometimes forgotten, was never extinct for an instant. She had loved him at first; she loved him now ten times more than ever. She had wronged him, neglected him, dishonoured him—alas, how grievously!—her one hope lay in confession, reconciliation, forgiveness: and he lay there, more dead than alive—speechless, motionless, except when some spasm of suffering shook him—and, so far as outward sign showed, unconscious of her presence. Maud thanked Heaven that she was on the spot to know and see the worst, and yet it was almost more than she could bear. Her load of anguish seemed too much for one till now a stranger to sorrow. Again and again some old trait in the haggard, suffering face, a moan of pain, a gesture too slight from weakness to be intelligible to any eye but hers, touched a fresh chord in her heart, broke down her wavering fortitude, and sent her rushing to her room to shed in solitude the tears of sorrow and remorse. Again and again she washed away the useless tears, nerved herself once more to maintain a courageous exterior, and returned, with a fortitude which she felt gather strength within her, to the sad task of watching and waiting for the crisis which a few hours more must bring.
Let us leave that terrible passage of Maud's life, with its trembling, agonising suspense, its heartfelt vows and prayers, its remorseful tears, its thrilling hopes, its mysterious communings with another world. Let us drop a curtain over that solemn season. Maud will emerge from it, we may be sure, with a new-born fortitude, patience, loftiness of soul; courage, the child of suffering; calmness, the attribute of those who have been close upon despair.
A fortnight later Sutton was lying in the drawing-room, with no other malady than excessive weakness, and with no other occupation than to recruit his shattered powers. Maud was busied with the composition of some appetising beverage, which was, the doctor said, the only kind of medicine of which he now stood in need, and which could, in Maud's and her husband's opinion, be properly concocted and administered by no hand but hers. Then the invalid's pillows needed skilful arrangement, for he was still at the stage when mere lying still is an exertion which seems to tax every limb and muscle in the aching frame. Maud found an indescribable relief and pleasure in waiting on her husband, and proved herself a nature-taught adept in the kindly art of nursing. Every act, though her husband knew it not, had, to Maud's aching conscience, a sort of penitential devotion about it, and said a hundred things of love and sorrow which as yet found no utterance in spoken words.
'What a model wife!' said Sutton, as he lay watching her movements, in grateful admiration at her skill and care on his behalf.
'Ah! but,' said Maud, thankful for the opportunity of the confession she was longing to make, 'I am not a model wife at all, but just everything that a model ought not to be.'
'Then,' said Jem gallantly, 'I am for you, and not for the model, whoever drew it.'
'Jem,' she said, with sudden seriousness, 'I want to tell you something, and be forgiven. I meant to do so before, but you have been too poorly. I am afraid it will hurt you. I have been going on very stupidly at Elysium, and very wrongly, and doing everything that you would most have disliked, and that I dislike now—oh! how bitterly!'
Sutton, to Maud's great relief, did not seem in the least surprised or inclined to be serious about the matter. He took her hand and held it with the kindest caressing manner.