CHAPTER XV.

THE LAST OF LITTLE BERTIE.

"She put him on a snow-white shroud, A chaplet on his head; And gathered only primroses To scatter o'er the dead.

She laid him in his little grave-- 'Twas hard to lay him there: When spring was putting forth its flowers, And everything was fair.

And down within the silent grave, He laid his weary head; And soon the early violets Grew o'er his grassy bed.

The mother went her household ways, Again she knelt in prayer; And only asked of Heaven its aid Her heavy lot to bear."

L. E. L.

On leaving Frances Strickland, Amy went to poor Bertie's room to lay the fair white cross in his coffin, and was bending down over her lost darling in an agony of tears which old Hannah vainly attempted to check, when the sudden, hasty gallop of a horse away from the stables struck her ear. It was the groom going for Dr. Bernard.

Amy's mind, already unnerved and unstrung, was easily alarmed.

"Alas! Hannah," said she, drawing near the darkened window "has any accident happened that some-one rides so furiously?"

"My dear Miss Amy," replied Hannah, forgetting in her tender pity Amy's new tie, and thinking of her only as the wee child she had so lovingly nursed on her knee, "you must not be frightening yourself this way. What should have happened? God knows you've had enough to worry you. There, don't tremble that way, but let go the blind, and come away from the window."

But Hannah's persuasions and entreaties were alike useless. Amy, with fluttering anxious heart still looked out through the deepening shadows of the day, now fast drawing into evening.

Her husband was away. Oh! how she wished she could see him or hear his firm, yet for the last few days mournful step. Her heart had taken a strange fear, which she could neither shake off, nor subdue; a trembling nervous dread of some fast-coming evil.

Mr. Linchmore came up the drive, and for a moment a joyous thrill crept through her as she thought it was her husband; but no, he came nearer still, then disappeared up the terrace with Mr. Hall, and only the groom with the pony carriage was left, standing quietly as it had stood ever since she had so eagerly strained her eyes from the window.

Then once again--as it had done long, long ago--that strange, dull tramp from without smote her ear.

Meanwhile, Anne had nerved her heart as well as she could, and gone sorrowfully enough to break the sad news to Amy.

Not finding her either in her own or Miss Strickland's room, she guessed she was in poor Bertie's: besides, she missed the white cross.

"Oh! Tom!" she said, going back to her husband, "What can I do? She is with her poor dead child, surely I need not; and indeed I feel I cannot go there and tell her."

"No," replied Mr. Hall, after a moment's consideration, "perhaps it will be best to try and get Vavasour into his room without her knowledge. I think with caution it might be done. Go and remain near the nursery door, Anne; they will not have to pass it on their way up, and I will go and enjoin silence and caution."

Anne sped away, and took up the post assigned her, listening eagerly, yet fearfully for the sound of the muffled footsteps, and straining her ears in the direction of the stairs, so that Amy stood before her, almost ere she had heard the opening of the door.

Anne saw at once Amy guessed at some disaster, for she gently but firmly resisted Anne's endeavours to arrest her footsteps, and said, while she trembled excessively,

"My husband! Is he dead?"

"No. Oh no! Amy darling."

Then as Amy would have passed on, she whispered, in a voice she in vain attempted to steady,

"Don't go there Amy! pray don't!"

But Amy paid no heed, but went and stood at the head of the stairs on the landing.

In vain Mr. Linchmore and Mr. Hall gently tried to induce her to leave; she was deaf to reason.

"I must be here," she murmured, with pale compressed lips, "I must be here."

There was no help for it; so they bore him up slowly past her on into his room, and laid him on the bed, and there left him.

"Do you think he will die?" asked Amy, fearfully, as she grasped old Dr. Bernard's arm tightly, some time later as he sat by the fire.

How he felt for her, that old man, she so young, and so full of sorrow. He drew her hand in his, and stroked it gently and kindly.

"Trust in God, and hope," was the reply.

"I do trust," she replied, firmly. "I _will_ try and hope. But, oh! I love him! I love him!" she said.

And this was the one cry for ever, if not on her lips, at her heart.

She sat by the pale insensible form day after day; she knew no fatigue, heeded not the lapse of time. Once only she stole away to imprint a last loving kiss on her dead Bertie's lips ere they bore away the little coffin to its last resting-place in the cold churchyard; then silently she went back to her old place by her husband's bed-side. Would he die without one word? without recognising his wife who loved him so entirely? Oh! surely he would speak one loving word if but one; give her one loving look as of old. She felt that her boy's death was as nothing in comparison to this.

As the love deep and strong welled up in her heart, she felt half frightened at its intensity, while it crept with a great fear as she whispered over and over again, "He will die." If he would but speak; or say one word.

Alas! the words came at last, but only incoherent murmurings, indistinct unmeaning words. His eyes opened, and wandered about without knowledge, and though they rested on her, knew her not. His burning hands returned not the soft pressure, the loving touch, of hers. Would he die thus, and never know the deep love she had for him; the tenderness, devotion of her heart? She groaned in utter anguish and misery; but patiently sat on.

In vain they tried, those kind friends, to draw her away; or if they did succeed in persuading her to lie down on a mattress on the floor, her large mournful eyes never closed in sleep, but still kept watch on the one loved form; her heart ever fearing he would die--praying that he might not.

And Mrs. Grey, or rather Mrs. Archer, the newly-made mother; where was she? She kept watch, too, over her long-lost son, but without being the slightest help to the poor heart-broken wife, having apparently no thoughts, no words, no looks for anyone but the son who had been lost to her for so long. Fear mingled with her joy; fear like the wife's lest he should die.

Amy was told part of her story by Mr. Linchmore, and made no objection to the poor mother sharing her watch; she was her husband's mother, that was enough. What he loved, she would love.

Very silent and motionless Mrs. Archer sat. Amy sometimes wandered about restlessly, or gave way to passionate weeping now; but very patiently, very sorrowfully, the mother sat. They exchanged no words with each other, those two mournful watchers; Mrs. Archer had been told the young girl's relationship to her son, and sometimes her eyes rested lovingly on the pale, beautiful face.

When Amy went to take a last look at her boy, she took Mrs. Archer's hand, and drew her away with her, and together they had stood and gazed at the little white marble face. Amy said no word, but as Mrs. Archer moved away, she murmured,--

"Better thus, than lost. Lost for years."

The shock of all these events proved too much for Anne, and when her husband returned on the Tuesday morning he could not but notice how wan and pale she looked, and so excitable, that the least thing in the world upset her. Instead of the glad, but perhaps sober welcome he expected, she threw her arms round his neck, as she had done at parting, and burst into tears, which she had a hard matter to prevent ending in hysterics. Mr. Hall's soothing, gentle manner soon calmed her; but she was very nearly giving way again that same evening, when he urged her immediate return home.

"What! leave Amy, Tom, in all her trouble? Oh, no, never!"

"The worry and excitement is too much for you, Anne, I cannot shut my eyes to that fact, and must not allow you to sacrifice your health for the sake of your friend."

"My dear, dear husband, do let me stay?"

But the look on her husband's face convinced her that his resolution was taken, and inflexible. She ceased to coax and persuade, and bethought her what could be done. Frances Strickland was still weak and ill; besides, her companionship was not in any way to be desired for Amy.

"Have I not heard you, Anne," said Mr. Hall, as if answering her thoughts, "speak of some kind old lady, a great friend of Mrs. Vavasour's mother? Surely her aid as a companion, though not as a nurse, might be called upon now."

Of course. Why had not Anne thought of it?

In a few moments, with her usual haste, she was speeding away in search of Mrs. Linchmore, to beg her permission, before she invited Mrs. Elrington. It was given, though with Anne thought anything but a good grace, and the letter written and despatched, and Anne tried to appear content and satisfied that she was leaving; and doing right; and that Amy might not think it unkind. As she packed her box, she was forced to confess she _was_ weak, and that it was perhaps as well she had a husband to look after her some times, and that Mr. Hall was right, as he always was, in wishing her to have rest.

The next few days passed much as the former ones to Amy, being, so to speak, a misery of doubt and hope; but on the morning of the third there came a change--a change for the better. Robert Vavasour slept. Not that dull, insensible sleep, a hovering between life and death, such as it had been when Amy first watched by him, but a soft, natural sleep; the breathing came faint, but regular; the face wore none of its former set, rigid look, but gradually grew into the old, old expression she loved so well. Then Amy knew her husband was better; God had been very merciful; he would not die and leave her desolate and alone; she knew it long before old Dr. Bernard's anxious face wore that pleasant, cheery smile, or Mrs. Archer had thanked God so fervently on her knees.

Robert Vavasour slept, slept for hours; and during that long sleep Amy and Mrs. Archer arranged their future plans; her husband must not be told of his mother's existence yet; in the first place, he was not strong enough to bear any excitement, and in the next, the poor, fond mother hoped to win a little of his kindly feeling, if not his love, before she held him to her heart.

"I hope to win his love in time," she said quietly to Amy, "to feel he loves me before he knows he is bound to do so. I cannot hope now for the first strong love of his heart--that deep earnest love with which he loves his wife; but I feel nevertheless that I shall be satisfied with my son's love. His face is like his father's, and he must be as noble and as good, to have won such love as yours."

Then Mrs. Archer went away to seek Mr. Linchmore, and hear the story of her wrongs, leaving Amy to watch sadly and alone for her husband's awaking. Sadly, for how would his eyes meet hers? Would they have the same stern, severe look that had shivered her heart for so long? Would he still think she loved him not? But she would tell him all by-and-by. She could not live as she had lived: he must hear and judge whether she was as guilty as he thought her.

Robert awoke to consciousness: awoke to see the soft eyes of his wife, looking mournfully, doubtfully, but oh! how lovingly at him. As his eyes met hers, a tender light played in them; he even pressed the hand she held so tremblingly in hers; but only for a moment, the next, as she bent down and pressed her lips to his, he gave a deep sigh, and turned his face away wearily.

"He has not forgotten!" murmured Amy mournfully, as she rose and went to seek Dr. Bernard, "He has not forgiven!"