Mr. Hardwicke, not knowing Percival Thorne's precise address, had telegraphed to Godfrey Hammond, begging him to forward the message without delay. A couple of days earlier Hammond had suddenly taken it into his head that he was tired of being in town and would go away somewhere. In a sort of whimsical amusement at his own mood he decided that the Land's End ought to suit a misanthrope, and promptly took a ticket for Penzance as a considerable step in the right direction.
It made no difference to Percival, for Hammond had left full directions with a trustworthy servant in case any letters should come for Mr. Thorne, and the man sent the message on to Brenthill at once. But it made a difference to Hammond himself. When Hardwicke despatched the telegram to his address in town Godfrey lay on the turf at the Lizard Head, gazing southward across the sunlit sea, while the seabirds screamed and the white waves broke on the jagged rocks far below.
But with Percival there was no delay. The message found him in Bellevue street, though he did not return there immediately after his parting with Judith. He wanted the open air, the sky overhead, movement and liberty to calm the joyful tumult in heart and brain. He hastened to the nearest point whence he could look over trees and fields. The prospect was not very beautiful. The trees were few—some cropped willows by a mud-banked rivulet and a group or two of gaunt and melancholy elms. And the fields had a trodden, suburban aspect, which made it hardly needful to stick up boards describing them as eligible building-ground. Yet there was grass, such as it was, and daisies sprinkled here and there, and soft cloud-shadows gliding over it. Percival's unreal and fantastic dream had perished suddenly when Judith put her hand in his. Now, as he walked across these meadows, he saw a new vision, that dream of noble, simple poverty, which, if it could but be realized, would be the fairest of all.
When he returned from his walk, and came once more to the well-known street which he was learning to call "home," he was so much calmer that he thought he was quite himself again. Not the languid, hopeless self who had lived there once, but a self young, vigorous, elate, rejoicing in the present and looking confidently toward the future.
This I can tell,
That all will go well,
was the keynote of his mood. He felt as if he trod on air—as if he had but to walk boldly forward and every obstacle must give way. The door of No. 13 was open, and a boy who had brought a telegram was turning away from it. Hurrying in with eager eyes and his face bright with unspoken joy, Percival nearly ran up against Mrs. Bryant and Emma, whose heads were close together over the address on the envelope.
"Lor! Mr. Thorne, how you startled me! It's for you," said his landlady.
He went up the stairs two at a time, with his message in his hand. Here was some good news—not for one moment did he dream it could be other than good news—come to crown this day, already the whitest of his life. He tore the paper open and read it by the red sunset light, hotly reflected from a wilderness of tiles.
He read it twice—thrice—caught at the window-frame to steady himself, and stood staring vaguely at the smoke which curled upward from a neighboring chimney. He was stunned. The words seemed to have a meaning and no meaning. "This is not how people receive news of death, surely?" he thought. "I suppose I am in my right senses, or is it a dream?"
He made a strong effort to regain his self-command, but all certainties eluded him. This was not the first time that he had taken up a telegram and believed that he read the tidings of Sissy's death. He had misunderstood it now as then. It could not be. But why could he not wake?