But more than wisdom sees, love knows.
What eye has scanned the perfume of the rose?
Has any grasped the low grey mist which stands
Ghost-like at eve above the sheeted lands?
Meanwhile Sir Robert paused on the threshold of the room—her room, which he had first entered two-and-twenty years before. And as the then and the now, the contrast between the past and the present, forced themselves upon him, what could he do but pause and bow his head? In the room a voice, her voice, yet unlike her voice, high, weak, never ceasing, was talking as from a great distance, from another world; talking, talking, never ceasing. It filled the room. Yet it did not come from a world so distant as he at first fancied, hearing it; a world that was quite aloof. For when, after he had listened for a time in the shadow by the door, his daughter led him forward, Lady Sybil’s eyes took note of their approach, though she recognised neither of them. Her mind was still busy amid the scenes of the riot; twisting and weaving them, it seemed, into a piece with old impressions of the French Terror, made on her mind in childhood by talk heard at her nurse’s knee.
“They are coming! They are coming now,” she muttered, her bright eyes fixed on his. “But they shall not take her. They shall not take her,” she repeated. “Hide behind me, Mary. Hide, child! Don’t tremble! They shan’t take you. One neck’s enough and mine is growing thin. It used not to be thin. But that’s right. Hide, and they’ll not see you, and when I am gone you’ll escape. Hush! Here they are!” And then in a louder tone, “I am ready,” she said, “I am quite ready.”
Mary leant over her.
“Mother!” she cried, unable to bear the scene in silence. “Mother! Don’t you know me?”
“Hush!” the dying woman answered, a look of terror crossing her face. “Hush, child! Don’t speak! I’m ready, gentlemen; I will go with you. I am not afraid. My neck is small, and it will be but a squeeze.” And she tried to raise herself in the bed.
Mary laid gentle hands on her, and restrained her. “Mother,” she said. “Mother! Don’t you know me? I am Mary.”
But Lady Sybil, heedless of her, looked beyond her, with fear and suspicion in her eyes. “Yes,” she said. “I know you. I know you. I know you. But who is—that? Who is that?”
“My father. It is my father. Don’t you know him?”
But still, “Who is it? Who is it?” Lady Sybil continued to ask. “Who is it?”