He slowly raised his head; I saw his mouth open, the while he made a frantic effort to speak; he even smiled, and seemed to try to raise himself in the girl's arms. As the elder woman moved towards him, he shrank away from her, with horror written in every line of his face, and seemed to dread that she might touch him; when she did, in order to assist the girl to raise him, it was curious to see the way in which he looked at her, like a dumb stricken thing that did not understand. By that time I was in the room, and my presence seemed to stir young Millard at once to action.
"I'll go and get a doctor," he said. "He's had a stroke."
The elder woman and I contrived to get him upstairs to his room, assisted by the woman who acted as servant in the house. And while we moved him he strove always to keep his eyes fixed on the wife who had so mysteriously come back to him from the grave; he watched her incessantly. More than once he contrived to move a hand, to touch hers; and again that puzzled expression would come over his face. Now and then, too, his mouth would slowly open, in that effort to speak, and then would close again.
The doctor came at last, and very gravely shook his head; muttered something to the boy about old habits and Time's revenges; predicted that the man might live for a long time, or might die at any moment. "One thing is very certain," said the doctor, as he pulled on his gloves—"he'll never speak again."
There was nothing that I could do there, and there was work waiting for me in London. I felt that I must not then leave ragged ends; I must settle firmly upon my shoulders the burden I had taken up. I whispered to the elder Barbara that I was going; she came with me out of the house, and only left me at the gate.
"This is the end for us, Charlie," she said; and yet she spoke quite bravely. "My place is here, and I shall not leave him again. I come here as the unknown woman—the friend of my own child; for he will never be able to say who I am, and I shall never tell any one on my own account. And you, my dear"—she wound her fingers about mine for a moment, and looked at me with the old steadfast look—"what will you do—alone?"
"I don't know, Barbara," I said. "I shall go back, to meet whatever fate is in store for me—and it does not really matter, after all. I have been greatly blessed; I have seen the dear woman I love again, and I hold her hands now; and I once looked upon a dreary world that held her not, because she was supposed to be dead. And the child you love is near you, and happiness beckons her with a sure hand. It might have been ever so much worse, Barbara."
"If it should never happen that we meet again, Charlie, let it at least be understood that I have forgotten and forgiven and understood all that you have done," she said. "And now good-bye—good-bye—for the last time!"
I did not dare to look back, although I knew that she stood there, watching me as I went. It might have unnerved me had I seen her again; and I had need of all my nerve for what was before me. I got to the station, and once more took train for London. For I felt that, in the first place, I must solve the mystery of the steamer tickets.