IV.--A Life-Long Shadow
Of course, he did not die--I need not tell you that. The doctors pulled him through. And when he was better the doctors removed the splinters of bone from his arm. He did not talk much in this happy quiet time. William and Lady Ascot were with him all day. William, dear fellow, used to sit on a footstool and read the "Times" to him.
Lord Welter (now Lord Ascot, on the death of his father) came to see Charles one day, and something he said made Charles ask if Adelaide was dead.
"Tell me something," said Lord Ascot. "Have you any love left for her yet?"
"Not one spark," said Charles. "If I ever am a man again, I shall ask Mary Corby to marry me. I ought to have done so sooner, perhaps. But I love your wife, Welter, in a way; and I should grieve at her death, for I loved her once."
"The truth is very horrible. We went out hunting together, and I was getting the gate open for her, when her devil of a horse rushed it, and down they came on it together. And she broke her back, and the doctor says she may live till seventy, but that she will never move from where she lies--and just as I was getting to love her so dearly--"
That same afternoon Charles asked William to get Mary to come and see him, and William straightway departed, and found Mary. And later in the day Miss Mary Corby announced that she and Charles were engaged to be married.
William was still master of Ravenshoe, but he was convinced that the first marriage of his grandfather would be proved, and Charles reinstated.
"Remember, Charles, I am not spending the revenues of Ravenshoe," he said. "They are yours. I know it. I am spending about £400 a year. When our grandfather's marriage is proved, you will provide for me and my wife, I know that. Be quiet."
William had long been engaged, from the time he had been Charles's servant, to a fisherman's daughter, Jane Evans, and the change in his fortunes made no difference in the matter. She was only a fisherman's daughter, but she was wonderfully beautiful, and gentle, and good.