CHAPTER XXXII.

LAST HOURS.

The lamp was placed on a chest of drawers behind the chair of Dr. Davenal. It was getting on for ten o'clock. Quite time, as had been suggested to him, that he should be in bed; but he appeared unwilling to move. He felt easy, he said: and therefore he stayed on.

The flickering light of the fire, now burning with a dull red heat, now bursting up into a blaze, threw its rays upon the chamber--destined, ere that night should close, to be a chamber of death, although they, the watchers, as yet suspected it not. The light fell upon the simple bed at the far corner, destitute of hangings--for the doctor was a foe to curtains--upon the dwarf cabinet beside it, whose lower shelves enclosed a few choice books, upon the drawers, upon the dressing-table at the farther window, and upon the open space at this end where the fire was. The light fell on the doctor as he lay back in the gaudy dressing-gown, on the chair-pillow, one hand hanging down listlessly, the other fondly resting on the soft brown hair of his daughter.

She sat on a footstool by his side, nestled close to him. Her head bowed down, for she had much ado to conceal and subdue her emotion, her hands clasped and laid upon his knee. The dread fear that he was dying rested on her heart; had come to it, as it seemed, by intuition. Not a word yet of this ominous dread had been spoken between them; each seemed to shrink from the task. But Sara strove to gather courage and strength, so that in his presence she might at least not give way.

The doctor stretched out his disengaged hand and pointed to a china cup that stood on the table. Sara rose and brought it to him, and he took a few spoonfuls of the refreshment it contained.

"Is not the fire getting low, my dear?" he asked, with a slight shiver.

She rose and stirred it, brought forward the coal-box and put on fresh coal, and then took the hearth-brush and swept the bars and the hearth, making things comfortable.

"Do you feel cold, papa?"

"I think so," he answered, with another shiver.

"I am sure you would be better in bed. Shall I call Neal?"

"Not yet. Come and sit down again." She took her place, nestling to him as before, and he fondly stroked her head with his feeble hand. It seemed to her that the hand grew feebler with every change, every fresh movement.

"I have a few things to say to you, my dear, and I had better say them now. I should not like to go to sleep with them unspoken."

Did he mean the sleep of death? Sara trembled inwardly: she hoped that she should retain sufficient strength, no matter at what cost to her feelings, not to tremble outwardly.

"It was necessary that I should make a fresh will," he began after a pause. "In the old will----"

"O papa! surely you are not going from me!"

Utterly unnerved, the words had broken from her in her misery. Dr. Davenal resumed in a tender, reasoning accent.

"I must have you brave, darling; just for a short while. Won't you try and be so? You see I have only you to speak to, Edward being away. My strength may not last very long."

She understood him: that his strength might not hold out if she hindered him by giving way to emotion. The precious time! not much of it might be left to them. With a mighty effort of will, with an anguished sigh to Heaven for help, Sara Davenal outwardly grew still and calm.

"Tell me all you have to tell, papa. I will try and be to you what Edward would have been."

"In the old will, made subsequent to the death of Richard, the chief part of what I had to leave was divided equally between you and Edward. Caroline--but it matters not to speak of her. In this new will, made now since this illness, all I die possessed of is bequeathed to you."

"To me!" she echoed, the injustice of the thing striking on her mind in the first blush of the words.

"Do you think, after what has happened, that Edward could have any right to it?"

She was silent. The doctor lay still for a few moments to gather breath. His voice was so weak that she could barely catch some of the words.

"When Edward brought that ill upon us, which has gone well-nigh to kill me--which I believe in a measure has killed me, in so far as that it rendered my state of mind and body such that I have been unable to fight against what might otherwise have proved but a slight disorder--when he brought it upon us, I say, I had only one way open to me--to sacrifice my property and save him. All fathers might not have done it, though most would: but I believe few fathers love their children as I have loved mine. But to save him, I had not only to sacrifice my property, but also in a measure to sacrifice you."

"Papa," she said, lifting her head, "I wish I might ask you something."

"Well--do so."

"If you would but trust me more entirely. When Edward came that night and you called me down, I learnt he was in some dangerous trouble; but I learnt no further. Since then nothing but fears have haunted me."

"And have they not haunted me?" echoed the doctor in a strange tone of pain. "The night stands out in my memory like a frightful dream. Think what it was. When I was lingering in that front room there, full of the trouble brought to me by the death of Lady Oswald, not yet cold, there came a tapping at the window, and I looked out and saw Edward. Edward, my son!--disguised, as may almost be said, for he did not care to be recognised in Hallingham; and in truth recognition might have been dangerous. 'Let me in quietly, father,' he said, 'I am in danger.' Sara, were I to live to be an old man, could not forget the effect those words had upon me. I was unnerved that evening: the recent death of Lady Oswald and--and--its unhappy circumstances were as vividly before me as though it was being enacted then, and I was unnerved to a degree not usual. He wore a cap on his head, and a plaid scarf very much up about his neck, in fact just as any gentleman might travel, but I had not been accustomed to see Edward so dressed. His voice, too, was hushed to a warning tone. 'Let me in quietly, father. I am in danger.' In the first confused moment I declare I thought of some threatened danger in the street--that some wild animal was running loose: strange ideas do occur to one in these sudden moments. I let him in, and he began hurriedly to tell me that he did not want his visit to be known, for he was absent from quarters without leave; nay, in defiance of leave, which had been denied to him as inconvenient to be granted in the hurried period of the regiment's departure. But he was compelled to see me, he continued, and--then--he told me all."

"Told you what, papa?" she whispered, when the doctor's moan of reminiscence had died away.

"Of the awful position into which his folly had plunged him. Of the crime that he had committed, and which, if not hushed up, _bought_ up, one may say, would in a few days find him out. Sara, Sara! men have been hung for that same crime in days not so long gone by."

He, the unhappy father, stopped to wipe from his face the dews that had gathered there. It was an awful tale for a father to tell; it was more awful for him to have heard it. Sara shivered: she did not dare to interrupt by a single word.

"My gallant son, of whom I had been so proud! Youth's follies had been his in plenty; vanity, extravagance, expenditure, bringing debt in their train, which I had satisfied, more than once, over and above the handsome allowance I made him: But crime, never. Sara, when that night was over, I felt that I would rather die than live it over again, with its sudden lifting of the curtain to pain and shame."

"Papa, if----"

"Hush, child! Let me finish this part while I can speak. He confessed all in its fullest extent. The ice once broken he told the whole. Indeed, he had no choice but to tell it, for it was only by knowing it entirely that I could help him. Had he concealed the half of it he might as well have concealed all: and he might have stood at his country's bar to answer for his crime." Sara gave a great cry. Terrible as her vague doubts had been, pointing sometimes to the very darkest sin that is comprised in the decalogue, the one which Oswald Cray had even dared to whisper in her ear, it was so much worse to hear those doubts confirmed.

"At his country's bar?"

"Child, yes. Don't I tell you what the punishment would have been for it not many years ago? What could I do but save him? Had it been necessary to part with every stick and stone I possessed in the world, I must have parted with them--anything, everything, so as to save him. I told him what I would do; that I would start before morning light--for speed was necessary--and get to London and stop the danger. On his part he had to go back by the train that passes through here at midnight, and so be at quarters by the morrow, that his absence might not be known. Before he went he begged to see you. I think that he then--Sara, I think it now, and have for some little time--that he then had made up his mind not to come down again: or else he fancied that he should not be able to come. However that may have been, he begged to see you; and I, seeing I must confess no reason for it, called you down. And the rest you know."

"I don't know one thing," she whispered. "Papa, I don't know what it was--the crime."

"And better that you should not," he answered with a vehemence surprising in his weak state. "I would not have adverted to it at all, but for what I have to explain to you. Listen, Sara, for there are directions that I must give you now."

Pausing, he held his hand up for an instant as if to bespeak her attention, and then resumed.

"I shall startle you if I say that the money I was called upon to find was no less than eight thousand pounds. Ah! you may well lift your head, child! And this imprudent, sinful man was your brother and my son, and Heaven only knows how dearly I love him still! Five thousand of it I paid at once, and the rest I arranged to pay later, at different periods. This very Christmas, I have paid another five hundred, leaving two thousand five hundred yet to pay. I have directed that whatever I die possessed of shall be sold, and the money paid over to you, my daughter, Sara Davenal: The terms of the will may excite curiosity; people will marvel why I did not appoint trustees; and you, my darling, must be content to let them marvel. The residue, after my debts are paid, will be, as I judge, about three thousand pounds. And of this, Sara, two thousand five hundred must be given to these people, who hold Edward's safety in their hands."

Again she was startled. "Do they hold it still?"

"They do. They hold his--I may almost say life--in their hands. Once they are paid, the danger will have passed. You will make no unnecessary delay?"

"No," she said with a shudder. "The very hour the money is in my hands it shall be paid to them."

"In my desk, in the private compartment, you will find a sealed paper addressed to yourself. It contains full directions how you must accomplish this, and who the parties are. I thought it well to write this down for you, that there might be no mistake or forgetfulness. Inside this paper you will find a letter addressed to these people, and that I wish you to post with your own hands--with your own hands--within four-and-twenty hours after my death. Do you clearly understand?"

"Yes, she clearly understood, she answered; answered from the depths of her quivering heart.

"And I think that is all, so far as that unhappy business is concerned. Oh, my child, my child! if I could but have left you better off!"

"Papa, don't grieve for that!" she said in the midst of her choking sobs. "I shall do very well."

"You will have your home with your aunt. And Mark Cray is to pay you a certain sum for five years, which must be invested for you. Bettina will take care of you: but she is not of a cheering temper. If I could but have left you in a happier home!"

Looking forward, she felt that all homes would be pretty much alike to her with her load of grief and care. Surely the sorrows of life had fallen upon her early!

"I began to think, just about the time of Caroline's marriage, or a little before it, that Oswald Cray was growing to like you very much," resumed Dr. Davenal. "But it may have been only my own fancy. I was mistaken with regard to him once before; perhaps also was again?"

She sat silent, her head down, the fingers of her hands nervously entwining themselves one within the other.

"You don't answer me, Sara. It may be the last time I shall ask you anything."

"It is all over, papa," she said, lifting her streaming eyes. "Then there was! What has ended it?"

Ought she to tell him? _Could_ she tell him? Would it be right or wise to do so--to increase the sense of _ill_, wrought by her unhappy brother, already lying with so bitter a weight, in spite of his love, on Dr. Davenal's spirit! No, she thought she ought not. Her sense of right as well as her reticence of feeling shrunk from the task.

"Child, have you no answer for me?"

"Something--unpleasant--arose between us," she said, in a faltering whisper. "And so we parted. It was neither his fault nor mine; it--it was the fault of circumstances."

"Ah!" said the doctor, "a foolish quarrel. But I had thought both of you superior to it. Should the cloud ever pass away, and he wish to make you his wife, remember that you have my full and free approbation--that my blessing would go with it. In spite of his pride and his caprice, I like Oswald Cray."

"It never will pass away," she interrupted, almost with vehemence. "It is a thing impossible. We have bidden adieu to all that for ever."

"Well, you know best. I only say, if it should be. Is it this that has kept him from the house?"

"Yes. O papa, when you were blaming him for taking foolish and unjust offence against Lady Oswald's will, I wish you could have known what a mistake it was."

"And, Sara, I have urged on Caroline, as you heard me, that that money should be secured to herself," he continued, passing to a different subject. "I have spoken to your aunt; I have written of it to Oswald Cray--for that is the purport of my note to him. My dear, do you reiterate the same to them by word of mouth; and say that I urged it again with my dying breath. I don't know why the necessity for this should cling to my mind so strongly," he continued in a dreamy tone. "Unless it is because I dreamt a night or two ago that Mark had run through all his means, and Caroline was lying in some strange place, ill, and in grievous poverty. It was a vivid dream; and is as present to me now as it was when I dreamt it."

Sara pressed her hands upon her face. The effort to sustain her calmness was getting beyond her strength.

"Say that I urged it again with my dying breath! And give my love to the two little boys, Sara. Tell them that Uncle Richard would have sent for them to take a last farewell, had death not come upon him so suddenly. But there's no time; and tell them we shall meet again in that far-off land, when their toils and mine shall be alike over. Charge them to be ever working on for it."

She could not contain herself longer. Her very heart was breaking. And she turned with choking sobs, and hid her face upon his breast.

"Don't, my darling! Don't grieve hopelessly. It is God's will to take me, and therefore we should not sorrow as those without hope. I have tried of late to live very near Him, to resign myself to Him in all things. My life had become one long weary trouble, Sara--perhaps he is taking me from it in love."

"O papa! But I shall be left!"

"Ah, child, but you are young; life for you is only in its morning, and though clouds have gathered overhead, they may clear away again, leaving only brightness behind them. Think what it has been for me! To wake from troubled sleep in a night of pain to the dread that ere the day closed the name of my only remaining son might be in the mouths of men--a felon! Child, no wonder that I am dying."

Sara could not speak. She lifted her arm and let it fall across him. Dr. Davenal laid his hand lovingly on the bowed head.

"Yes, I am resigned to die. I would have lived on longer if I could; but that is denied me, and God has reconciled me to the decree. When you shall come to be as old as I am, Sara, you will have learnt how full of mercy are the darkest troubles, if we will but open our eyes to look for it."

Sara Davenal, in her keen distress, could not see where the mercy lay for her. To lose her father seemed to be the very consummation of all earthly misery. How many more of us have so felt when stern death was taking one we loved better than life!

"I am so glad I gave that money of Lady Oswald's back to the rightful owners!" he resumed, after a pause. "It has brought its comfort to me now. I am glad, too, that I have lived to see them in possession of it; that no vexatious delays were made to intervene. Had it not been settled before I died, there's no knowing what might have arisen. Sara, remember that our past acts find us out on our dying bed. Whether they have been good or evil, they come home to us then."

His voice had grown so faint that it was more by guessing than by hearing that she understood the words. Presently she looked up and saw that his eyes were closed; but his lips were in motion, and she thought he was praying. She began to wish he would get into bed, but when she attempted to move, his hand tightened around her.

"No: stay where you are. God bless you! God bless you always, my child!"

She remained on as before, her cheek resting on the dressing-gown. Presently Miss Bettina came in.

"It is the most wrong thing for you to sit up like this, Richard!" she was beginning, when she caught sight of his closed eyes. "Is he asleep, Sara? How could you let him go to sleep in his chair at this hour He ought--What's the matter?"

Miss Bettina--calm, cold, impassive Miss Bettina--broke off with a shriek as she spoke the last words. She went closer to him and touched his forehead.

Sara rose; and a bewildering look of hopeless terror took possession of her own face as she saw that white one lying there. Richard Davenal had passed to his rest.