CHAPTER VIII.

_A PARTING._

Thou whose exterior semblance doth belie Thy soul's immensity; Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep Thy heritage; thou eye among the blind: Thou over whom thy immortality Broods like the day, a master o'er a slave, A presence which is not to be put by!

In the hotel they returned, for the moment, to their old arrangements. The faithful child would not forsake her friend; his illness had, if possible, only endeared him to her.

L'Estrange was better. The shock had only been very partial. On the day following that of his return to the hotel he was already able to speak intelligibly, and to understand everything that went on around him. It was the morning of that day. Laura had been busy about the room putting everything tidy, as she said in her childish way, for her father had sent his servant to say that he would pay them a visit. She noticed that the eyes of L'Estrange followed her painfully about the room. There was a trouble in his face the child did not quite understand. Except for his illness--which, childlike, Laura looked upon as something very transient--she could not see in their present circumstances any cause for sadness. Her mind was troubled with no doubts about the right course to pursue. They were all to go back to her mamma as soon as ever her friend could be moved. It had never crossed her gentle mind that he was to be shut out of their happiness, and, so far as she was concerned, she had no intention of leaving him.

The heart of the little child was light. Everything had come about as she had hoped.

But Laura, young as she was, had been too often in the presence of suffering not to recognize it, and her friend had taught her to observe. She read the sorrow in his face and went to his bedside: "Mon pere, what is it? Are you worse?"

"Come to me, fillette," he answered, and with his left hand he drew her face to his.

The child smiled: "Pauvre cher pere, why do you look so sorry? You ought to look glad, because we're all going back to mamma. Oh, I am so happy! That night, mon pere, you remember, when you were out in the snow, and I thought you were lost, and I was to be left alone with people who said cross things, I wasn't happy then; but now it's all right. My papa is found--and," she lowered her voice as if speaking in confidence, "I think I shall love him too--then we shall see mamma again--"

She stopped suddenly, for the tears were falling one by one over her companion's face. To a stronger heart than Laura's the sight would have been pitiful. This stern, self-contained man did not often express his feelings. Even the child he loved had trembled sometimes as she looked at his dark, strong face--even she had feared to intrude upon his silence; now all was broken down. Weakness as of a little child had taken hold upon him. Laura was very much distressed. With tears of sympathy in her own eyes, she stroked the dark, passionate face, murmuring gentle words.

He spoke at last, and there was a sternness in his voice that might have repelled the child had she not known her friend so well. "Laura," he said, "you must not again say such things as these; you must try and understand, little one. What must be, must be; and thou and I _must_ part. Hush! hush!"

For Laura's face was averted; she had hidden it in the bed-clothes; she was weeping in the silent, unchildlike way that once or twice before had moved L'Estrange so deeply. In his weakness the man had much difficulty in preventing himself from giving way once more and weeping with her, but he controlled himself, for he was determined that no one but himself should make her understand.

"Laura," he said very tenderly, laying his left hand on the soft, golden head he loved so well, "it is necessary--you must go. I am not worthy of this love, and your mother is waiting for you."

"But, mon pere--" Laura lifted up her tear-stained face and met his deep, stern eyes. Her voice faltered, for, child as she was, she read his resolve. "You will be better," she said, "and come too."

"Never," he answered slowly. "Listen, little one." He put away the hair from her face and looked at her long and tenderly: "In years to come--ah, petite, long, long years--after your friend has been put away under the ground, ma fillette will be a woman, tall and beautiful and good; then she will know and understand that this thing is right; then she will know that her friend, who loved her, acted for the best in this--that what my Laura desires would not be possible. She must say to her old friend good-bye; she must go away to those who love her; not better--that could not be--but to those who have a greater right to her love. Why do you care for me, fillette? Ah, mon Dieu! it is painful," he added as if to himself, for the child's sobs had never ceased.

He drew her face down to him again: "Little bird, it is not well. These deep feelings give me grief. Thine is the age of laughter. Think then of la pauvre maman--she is weeping too."

"Yes," replied the child through her tears. "I want to go back; but oh"--a happy thought had struck her; she clasped her hands and looked up into her friend's face--"if papa and I go away now, at once, you'll get well and come afterward. This won't be saying good-bye for always: _please, please_, say it won't."

He felt inclined to give her an indefinite answer, to let her think that it should be as she wished; but when he looked into her dark, imploring eyes--the eyes from which shone out the tenderest, most innocent soul that had ever loved him in all his wild career--he felt that to deceive her would be impossible. He answered slowly and calmly, with the manner of one who for ever puts away some beautiful thing out of his sight: "Thou hast said it, fillette. Good-bye for always."

"Always! always!" The child repeated the word, her large dark eyes dilating as if with some hidden awe. "Mon pere," she said almost in a whisper, "it is so long--always, for ever. Do you mean that I am _never, never_ to see you again?"

He looked at her curiously. In his old way he was analyzing. He was trying to understand the sudden emotion that had blanched the little one's cheek and brought that look of awe into her eyes. It was not the first time that this vague terror of the unknowable had taken possession of this strange child's mind.

She shivered slightly as, standing by her friend's side, she reasoned out the matter with herself: "Mon pere, what does it mean? To-day ends, and to-morrow will end; and this year and next year, and every year, I suppose, till we die; and then--after then--there is heaven and for ever--always, always, for ever. I _can't_ understand it. Oh, mon pere, is it true?" The child was in an agony. This was the mental torture that had, several times, racked her brain.

"And," she added under her breath, with the look and tone of one treble her age, "in all this for ever--so long, so long--I must not see mon pere any more."

It was L'Estrange's turn to tremble. Rapidly as in a dream the remembrance came of that first day when for his own purpose he had implanted into the little one's mind thoughts and ideas too great and strong for one of her years.

"Mon Dieu!" murmured the stricken man, "and must it always be thus? I only love to blight and poison."

"Laura," he answered aloud--and his voice was grave and earnest--"you take things too much to heart. Try now to understand me, little one. Words have a certain meaning of their own, but people may give them too much meaning or too little. When ma fillette is older she will know that 'always' may sometimes mean a day, a week, a year--sometimes indeed this for ever of which she speaks so earnestly, but _very, very_ seldom. Look up, petite. _My_ always is not at all so very terrible. All I mean is this: you must go back home with your own father, and leave your friend here. See! I have made a letter be written to Paris, to the person whom you will remember there. Marie will come and help me to move to her little house; then if ever ma fillette comes to Paris she will know where to hear of her old friend."

"Oh, please let me have it," cried the child. She took the letter from the hand of L'Estrange, sat down before the table, and copied the address, letter by letter, in her large childish handwriting, her friend spelling it over for her that there might be no mistake. Then she folded up the paper and clasped it in both hands. "Mon pere," she said, "I will never lose it."

In the practical action Laura's dreamy fears had fled. Hope, the hope of a young child, reasserted itself once more. "I will show it to mamma," she said, "and we'll come together to see you; then perhaps--"

She was interrupted by a knock at the door. Her father was outside waiting for admittance.

As might have been expected, Maurice Grey had lost no time in making all needful preparation for their journey to England. He was in a fever of anxiety to be moving once more, to be on his way to his injured wife, to assure himself of her forgiveness and continued love. And there had been certain points in the story told by Arthur which had alarmed him. Margaret's poverty: the thought of this gave him perhaps the keenest pang he had experienced. He could not understand it, for, as has already been seen, Maurice Grey was not exactly to blame for this; but in his after review of all the circumstances he blamed himself bitterly for what he now looked upon as his own weak-minded folly in preserving this total silence. He had thought of his own pain in the event of all his fears receiving fatal confirmation, and his wife, so tenderly reared, had been suffering.

Then her delicacy, the sudden collapse of her powers. The thought of this was almost too hard to be borne, for if--if there should be disappointment before him--if he could never ask her forgiveness for the cruel wrong he had committed, never hold her again to his heart, never let her know how deeply through it all he had loved her--the man felt as if it would be better even to die himself. The bare idea maddened him.

He would willingly have cut through the air to reach her, and the necessary delay chafed his spirit. Since the moment of their return to the hotel the Englishman had been busy in making every preparation for departure.

Happily for him, the season had not yet entirely closed. Sledges would have to be used in various parts of the journey, and guides and drivers would probably require to be highly feed; but this was a matter of very small import. All he desired was speed. Arthur seconded his efforts ably. As the diligence had ceased running between Grindelwald and Interlachen, and the steamers no longer made their daily journey on the lake, a visit to Interlachen had been necessary, that special arrangements might be made as well for this as for their further journey; the railway connecting Thun with Berne had not then been completed.

It was arranged that Arthur should act as courier, preceding them to Thun to have relays prepared, and that Maurice should return to Grindelwald for Laura.

The child had not seen him since their journey through the snow from his solitary chalet in the mountains. She was a little shy of this new father, though inclined, as she had expressed herself to L'Estrange, to think that she should love him.

The fact was, that Laura, too much given to reason upon every point, could not quite reconcile to herself his love for her mother and his long absence. This had tormented the little one considerably during these last days. She took his caresses that morning very calmly. She would have run away then and left her father and friend alone together, but L'Estrange detained her. She obeyed his gesture and sat down again by his side.

Maurice drew her toward him, "Laura," he asked, "are you ready to come home?"

"Now?" said the child, "at once?"

"You want to go back to mamma, Laura?" he said gravely.

The child stood silent, trembling from head to foot. She was afraid to show what she felt before her father.

"Come," said Maurice, "we must thank your friend who has been so kind to you, and say good-bye to him."

Laura looked at L'Estrange. The proud face was turned to the wall. Weak as he was, he would yet show nothing before Maurice Grey. She went close up to his side. He motioned her away from him, and the heart of the little child could bear no longer. "Mon pere will die if I go away," she cried piteously. She covered her face with her hands and began to cry. It was difficult for Maurice to know what to do. The child's tears made him feel perfectly helpless. He was not accustomed to little ones, and he felt inclined not only to wonder, but to feel rather angry, at the strange power this man, her mother's bitterest enemy, had gained over the child's mind.

He answered her with a man's impatience. Like others, he forgot for the moment, in her strange womanliness, that Laura was only a little child. "My dear Laura," he said sternly, "I must have no more of this. Leave off crying at once, and do as I tell you. Say good-bye to Mr. L'Estrange, find your cloak and hat and come with me. I have told the maid to put your things together, and a sledge is waiting at the door."

Her father's voice checked the child so suddenly that the moment he had spoken he reproached himself for having spoken too strongly.

She left off crying at once, looked up with a pale, resolute face, and went into her own room to get ready for the journey. Then, when the scarlet cloak and hood had been put on by the sympathetic Gretchen, Laura returned and stood once more beside her friend.

"Papa," she said, turning to Maurice, "I'm quite ready, and you may go down now. I shall come presently. Please, I want to say good-bye to mon pere alone."

Maurice could not have been more astonished if he had suddenly seen his little daughter put on her womanhood than he was at this calm demand. He even hesitated a moment. But the little one stood her ground.

Laura's instincts had told her what it was that had made her friend so suddenly cold and distant. She could not leave him without _one_ more kind word; then, on the other hand, the presence of her father, and his stern forbidding of her ready tears, prevented her from letting her friend see some at least of the love and gratitude that filled her small heart.

Maurice looked at the tiny figure and smiled: "My daughter has her father's will. Well, little one, I suppose I must give in this time. It is natural, perhaps, that you should feel this, only don't be too long about your adieus."

He turned to L'Estrange, thanked him for his kindness to the child, asked if he could do anything for him before he went away; then, when the question had received a decided negative, bade him a courteous farewell.

Once more, and for the last time, the child and the man--the child so near heaven in her simplicity, the man world-weary and travel-stained--were left alone together, and now the little one felt that it was really for the last time.

He turned his face toward her. She threw herself down on her knees by his side, sobbing convulsively. "Mon pere," she cried piteously, "is it for ever?"

For a few moments he was silent. In the sorrow of parting from this only creature in the world who purely loved him, the memory of that night when God's peace had been shed abroad in his soul, when the tumult of his heart had been stayed by the consciousness of a presence above and around him, returned to his mind. He was alone and hopeless no longer. "Little one," he answered, drawing her soft cheek to his, "you must look for me there--in heaven."

"I will, I will," answered the sobbing child, for heaven at this moment seemed near and real to her.

She was about to rise, but he drew her down again: "Laura, remember, if I go there ever it will be through thee. My child! my child!"--his voice broke down suddenly--"the great God bless thee, now, every day of thy life, and even for ever!"

A knock at the door; the child's father was becoming impatient. Laura rose, kissed her friend once more, smoothed his bed-clothes as she had been accustomed to do, then turned away, choking back her sobs. The little one could not trust her own father yet. She was afraid he would be angry. She did not dare to look back at the door: she went, and L'Estrange was left alone.

The excitement had been almost too much for him in his weak state. That night L'Estrange thought that he would die. They were very kind and attentive to him in the hotel, did everything that could be done to lighten his sufferings, but all he wished was to be left alone, that he might die in peace. He was mistaken, however, as he had often been before. This stroke did not mean death. A few days after Laura's departure he was able to sit up, a day or two later he was trying to teach his left hand to do the duties of the right, and before a fortnight had passed his friend from Paris had arrived.

Sorely in those days of enforced solitude he had missed his little comforter, but Marie's bright, helpful presence did much toward restoring him. He recovered in time to a certain measure of health and strength, and yet the man was changed.

The spirit that had faced the world's storms, that had made joys for itself wherever fate had thrown him, was broken down. He had no aims, and to begin again his life of wandering seemed desolate beyond measure.

Perhaps his intercourse with Laura, and that parting which had wrung both their hearts, had stung him in this: it had brought before his mind the torment of that "might-have-been" which lurks in the background of pleasure and self-seeking to seize upon the remnant of a wasted life. It was his retribution, the portion he had prepared for himself, but none the less was it bitterly hard to be borne.

L'Estrange never regained his former vigor of body or strength of mind. He spent the rest of his life in wandering, for no ties held him to any particular place, and he was restless.

He wrote to Margaret as soon as ever he had acquired sufficient power over his left hand (the right remained for some time comparatively helpless). The letter was a pouring out of his heart, a confession of her wrongs. He took no merit to himself for having been instrumental in restoring her to happiness. He only offered this as a proof of his sincerity, he only asked for a line to let him know he was forgiven.

They never met again; indeed, L'Estrange did not live very much longer, but his end was peace.

"After the burden and heat of the day, The starry calm of night."