CHAPTER XII

LOVE CONFRONTS DESPAIR

"No, we might disturb her, and she appears to be resting quietly. In her case it's a little natural exhaustion. As for Mrs. Hart--the spine, I'm afraid. She rescued this one, I understand. Well, she paid the price. As for the young man, he couldn't have been in the water above half an hour. Yes, a tragedy."

The steps, which had merely paused at the door, passed on.

Annie sat up in the bed.

It was true then; that strangled awakening, that battle with the smoke, Rachel's voice faintly heard. In her dream--or what she had been striving to believe a dream--Rachel had saved her; and the dream was truth.

The impatient, not quite friendly Rachel throwing her own life away to save hers! Annie's stunned mind failed to grasp the novel vision. A lamp stood on a chair. Judging by the amount of oil remaining in the glass receptacle, the lamp had been burning there for many hours. Annie stared at the light; then, a little ball of misery and bewilderment, she wept against the pillows.

Presently the instinct awoke in her to find the one who was her natural comforter.

Slipping from the bed, she stood up on her feet. At first she swayed dizzily. Then she managed to dress herself and quitted the room.

She reached the lighted passage. The entire east wing of the house, she discovered, was brightly illuminated. She steadied herself against the wall and peered in the direction whence came a muffled sobbing. Outside Rachel's door Simon Hart stood with his face in his hands.

"Oh be careful!" he implored as she approached.

He had heard somewhere that in cases of injury to the spine the least jar to the patient was sometimes fatal. He looked at Annie without recognizing her and the tears which he made no effort to conceal, streamed down his face from his eyes which were filled with blank, inconceivable despair.

At that moment the door of the chamber opened; a physician emerged. Simon caught him by the arms.

"Is there no change, Doctor?"

"Not yet. There--there, my poor fellow, have courage."

"But I may go in for a moment? I don't ask to remain."

"Yes, if you will be calm."

"Oh, I will be calm, quite calm. You can trust me for that. But wait--this trembling--" And with his massive shoulders bent forward, Simon stole into the room.

"What, you?" And the physician caught Annie's elbow.

She looked at him.

He released her.

Between the muslin curtains, the night entered in its freshness. Every breeze bore tree odours, vine odours, flower odours. In the subdued light the bed gleamed an island of bluish white.

They had placed Rachel on a flat mattress, not venturing even to braid her hair. Instead, those rich and heavy locks that of late had breathed so poignantly a youthful beauty and pride, were spread over the linen where they framed the poor pallid cheeks. As she lay on her back, the lines of her mouth appeared slightly accentuated. Her arms were laid straight to her sides. Never did Death more completely express detachment. At the bed's foot stood Emily Short, her apron to her lips. A nurse in a starched cap noiselessly altered the position of a screen.

The thrilling brave act was apparent. Annie stood a figure abashed and small and unworthy.

Simon was unable to restrain his sobs. The physician laid a hand on his shoulder and he obeyed as unquestioningly as a child. Bending over Rachel he kissed her forehead; then followed the doctor out of the chamber. Annie kept at their heels.

The physician began to consult Simon about some matter and, unobserved, Annie passed them. She descended the stairs. Under the door of the front room there appeared a streak of light. She rapped: there was no answer; someone was in there who could not answer.

Filled with a confused memory, conjured terrors, she hastened down the hall. Very carefully and with great difficulty she opened the heavy front door and stepped out on the porch. In the light that streamed from that east wing, she saw Emil. He was standing with his shoulders against a tree. Her impulse was to run to him; she checked it.

Beneath his disordered mane his face was wild and haggard, and his eyes, raised to a certain window, were filled with an agony no tears had come to relieve. Occasionally his chest lifted with a sigh.

Seized by the selfish anguish of love, Annie thrust out her chin.

_He did not belong to her, he belonged to Rachel_! She had always suspected.

The next instant, however, the memory of what was flashed before her and like a flame for which there is no fuel, jealousy died in her breast. And what remained? A disconcerted self that wept under its own examining eyes.

"I never could have done what Rachel did," she thought forlornly; "I never could. And Emil knew she was different from me, he knew she was strong; and he loved her. I don't blame him," with a low catch of the breath,--"No, I don't blame him. How could he help it?"

Hour after hour, sick and weak, she clung to a pillar of the porch conscious only of an intensified confusion, a profound loneliness. Gradually, as she listened to those long deep sighs, she ceased to think of herself and longed to console Emil. But henceforth he must hate her as the cause of Rachel's death. The realization sent her into deeper shadow.

So they stood within a few yards of each other and only when dawn began to show faintly over the water, did Annie enter the house.

She saw no one from that east wing but the doctor, who took her wrist, feeling the pulse.

"Not the thing yet," he said, "though a decided improvement over yesterday. But you must show a better face than this."

She asked after Rachel.

He pretended to consult his watch.

She stepped in front of him, "Is there any chance for her, Doctor?"

He met her eyes then gravely. "There is about one chance in a hundred of her recovery; but go and get something to eat. You will find the servants about. I am going to the city now; I shall be back again on the noon train."

Annie went to the kitchen; she found the cook who gave her steaming coffee. She did not drink the coffee, but carried it through the house and out into the garden. She understood that Emil, fearing to betray his grief, had moved away at the doctor's approach. She went to the tree by which he had been standing and placed the coffee on the grass.

A few moments later he returned. He did not notice the cup until he had upset it; then he stared at the stupidly rolling china, and immediately struck off toward the beach.

Obscurely afraid of bringing shame on her who was dying, he shunned everyone. He remained on the beach, alternately watching the house from a distance, and pacing up and down.

At noon Annie ventured in the direction he had taken. He was no longer in sight. She went only a short way, then placed a basket of food where it could not escape his eye. Her preoccupation with her husband kept her from dwelling on more tragic matters.

The next day, when she was taking his dinner to the shore, Emil spied her. She set down the basket hastily and started to run. But he beckoned to her and then called.

She went to him, lifting up a suppliant face.

His eyes as she drew near, held the look of an animal that consciously awaits slaughter:

"How is she?"

As she did not answer at once, not knowing how to say what she must say, he caught her shoulder in a grip that spoke the madness of torture. "_For God's sake, tell me!_" he almost shouted.

"There is one chance in a hundred, Alexander," she said; "but there is one chance."

His head went up and his hand dropped.

Presently, with a convulsive breath:

"I've been a coward. I've dodged the doctor--couldn't ask him." His hands clenched. "Does she suffer?" he asked, and swung a look on her.

"No, she does not suffer," Annie answered. "She lies there very still as though she were asleep; and her husband stands outside the door and will not let anyone move in that part of the house. And in the front room, that strange young man who came the other day is lying dead. It seems he was sort of unbalanced, and it was he who set the fire; Ding Dong knows he did, for he tried to keep Ding Dong from giving the alarm. And then he drowned himself."

But her husband was interested in no one but Rachel. Haggard and unkempt, he stared at the water.

"I don't know anything about a God," he said slowly, "about a Creator, but if He--if she lives," he amended, "I'll take my oath to give her up as she plead with me to. I'll never trouble her again though it tears my heart out. I ask only that she shall live."

"There is one chance, Alexander," Annie said bravely.

He looked around at her; then took her hand.

They sat down side by side and stared at the waves.