“You are right,” he returned, his hands falling dejectedly to his side; “but I have had so much worry lately; I think my nerves are unstrung. And you don’t know—what it is to love a child—as I love my Phyllis.”
Her eyes deepened with feeling. “Ah, but I do!” she said, with a sudden catch in her voice. “I too have a child—a little darling whom I may never see again, although he is as dear to me as your little girl is to you. But I am brave, or at least I try to be.... And Phyllis will get better. My case is more hopeless than yours.”
“Phyllis will get better?” He grasped at the words as a drowning man clutches a straw. “I pray God she may! I pray God she may!” Then he leant his head against his hands, and continued, as though speaking to himself: “I am not superstitious—a sensible man has no right to give way to such folly; but I thought the judgment of Heaven had fallen when Phyllis was taken ill. The Jews.... They are the bane of my life ... they would pay me out if they could. Pharaoh oppressed them, and was smitten with the ten plagues.... But I won’t be beaten; I won’t.... Not if fifty plagues come on my people—not if Phyllis dies. If Phyllis dies.... Good God, what am I saying? She must not die.... Any judgment from Heaven—but not that ... my one little ewe lamb. Eh?” he added thickly, as Patricia made a movement. “What was I talking about? The brandy has got into my head, I think. Let me go—into the garden; I must have air.”
He stumbled up to the French window, which, by means of a flight of steps, gave access to the lawn. Patricia assisted him to descend, and rang hastily for his valet. Then she returned to the sick-room, thereby incurring the displeasure of the doctor; for in the hours that she was not on duty it was necessary that she should rest.
“I am on my way to bed now,” she whispered, glancing tenderly at the unconscious child; “but I wanted to tell you something, doctor. Mr. Moore seems very much unstrung, and I should like you to prescribe for him before you go. He has to preside at a Cabinet Meeting to-morrow, and unless he sleeps to-night, I am sure he will be unable to attend.”
The physician nodded.
“Very well, I will, as soon as I have given my instructions for the night to nurse,” he whispered back. “And now, Lady Patricia, I must insist on you going to bed; otherwise, we shall be having you on the sick-list too.”
The girl smiled, and quietly withdrew; but although she was tired, she felt little inclination for sleep. The stray glimpse into the secret chambers of the Premier’s mind had filled her with all sorts of curious cogitations, and she could not help pondering on the strange character of the man. He was evidently suffering either from distorted mental vision or—as Mamie had said—from remorse; and his recently-grey hair and haggard features testified that his health was being injured in consequence. But if that was the case—if his part in connection with the Expulsion was weighing so heavily on his mind, why did he not seek to atone for his action by advocating retractive measures? If he were a brave man—and his brilliant Parliamentary career proved him to be a morally strong one—why did he shrink from owning himself to have been in the wrong? Was it cowardice or sheer obstinacy which made him hold on grimly to his original views in spite of his inmost convictions? And how long would he be able to maintain that line of conduct—how long before the great mind would over-balance itself, and travel along the course which led to insanity? Could it be possible that they should ever see “that noble and most sovereign reason, like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh?”
But the next morning she found him as abrupt and self-possessed as usual. All traces of his recent emotion had disappeared, and he had evidently regained complete command over himself. The child had passed a better night, and his matutinal visit to the sick-room caused him such satisfaction that he was able to leave for London almost as soon as the doctor had been. And that day his dialectics at the Foreign Office were more irresistible than ever; he was once more his old self, now that the danger to his child was past.
Patricia found the period of the little girl’s convalescence more trying than the actual illness, for there seemed more to do, and Phyllis was often peevish and cross. Lady Chesterwood and Mrs. Lowther called every day, and sometimes twice a day; but unless she changed all her clothes, for fear the germs of infection should—according to the Countess—lurk in the folds of her nursing costume, she could not see them, and often she was obliged to let them go away: so that all communication with the outer world had practically ceased for the present, and of the daily inquirers who drove up to the Hall she saw not one. She looked over the visitors’ book sometimes, and collected the numerous visiting-cards for Phyllis to play with; but although some of the names were so familiar that they called up vivid remembrances of the days of her early girlhood, she felt no desire to see any of these quondam friends. Whether they knew of her presence in the Premier’s mansion she knew not; but it was likely that Mamie had spread the news.