Morning came again, and the sick man's pain gave place to a deathlike faintness, resulting from lack of nourishment. For thirty-six hours nothing had passed his lips but water, and that no longer ran from the faucet when he tried it. He crept down-stairs, stair by stair, holding by the balusters, like a little child. There was no water to be seen in the dining-room, and he did not know where to find any. He reached the parlor, lay down on the floor, and prayed for death or for life—anything to put an end to that nightmare of misery. It seemed that [pg 635] death was coming. His hands and feet grew cold with an unnatural chill, and, though the morning sunshine poured through the windows, all looked dim to his eyes. His senses seemed to be slowly receding, without pain, without any power or wish on his part to recall them. He lay and waited for death.
And while he waited, as one hears sounds in a dream he heard a door open and shut, then a quick, light step that ran up-stairs. John, standing over his friend, left him, and rushed to the parlor door, barking wildly, but was unable to get out, the door having swung to. In vain he tried it with his paws, and thrust his small nose into the crack. It was too heavy for him to move.
Suddenly, while Mr. Bently gazed with languid, half unconscious eyes at the creature, the door was pushed wide open, and a woman stood on the threshold. She was neither young nor old, but simply at the age of perfection, which is a variable age, according to the person. Her face was a full oval, but white now as hoar-frost. All its life seemed to centre in the large hazel eyes that were piercing with a terrified search. She wore her fair hair like a crown, piled high above the forehead in glossy coils like sculptured amber. Over one temple a black and gold moth was poised, as though it had just alighted there, its wings widespread. The long black folds of a velvet robe fell about her superb form, sweeping far back from her swift but suddenly arrested step. Scintillating fringes of gold quivered against the large white arms, edged the short Greek jacket, and ran in a single flash down either side of the train. A diamond cross lay like a sunbeam on her bosom, a single diamond twinkled in each small ear.
There was but an instant's pause, then she crossed the room quickly, and knelt by him.
“My God! my God!” she murmured, and lifted his head on her arm. “What fiendish cruelty!”
Her touch and voice recalled him to himself. He tried to put her away. “Leave me, Marian, I beg of you! Do not endanger yourself for me!”
But even while bidding her go, every nerve in him grew alive with the joyous conviction that he would not be obeyed, and that, danger or no danger, she would not desert him. Here were strength, help, and the power to command. She brought the world with her, this queenly woman, who had not even snatched the gloves from her hands since last night's ball, but had hurried to seek news of him, after the first confused rumor, to call doctor and nurse, to rush to him herself with all the speed her panting horses could make.
“Leave you? Never!”
He asked no questions, but resigned himself. How delightful the sickness, how sweet the pain, that led to this! How thrice blessed the desertion that gave her to him!
In half an hour, the doctor had come and given his decision. Mr. Bently's illness was merely a violent cold with fever, and a few days of careful nursing would make all right. In another half hour, he was established in a pleasant chamber in Mr. Willis' house, with a nurse in close attendance, the whole family anxiously ministrant, John an immovable fixture in the sick-room; and, later, Mrs. Marcia Clay besieging the house for news of poor dear Cousin Bently, and protesting and explaining to the very coldest of listeners, declaring that nothing but her duty to her family, etc.; and what was the meaning of that broken bottle and glass, and ineradicable laudanum [pg 636] stain on the carpet in her house? Was it possible that Cousin Bently had thought of taking any of that terrible stuff that she meant to have thrown away ages before? And would they bring down John? Arthur had asked for him.