Chapter 47

That night Richard could not rest. His brain wrought unceasingly.

He had caught cold and was feverish. After his hot haste to reach his brother and sister, he had stood on the stair till his temperature sank low. When at length he slept, he kept starting awake from troublous dreams, and this went on through the night. In the morning he felt better, and rose and set to his work, shivering occasionally. All the week he was unwell, and coughed, but thought the attack an ordinary cold. When Sunday came, he kept his bed, in the hope of getting rid of it; but the next day he was worse. He insisted on getting up, however: he must not seem to be ill, for he was determined, if he could stand, to go to the concert! What with weariness and shortness of breath and sleepiness, however, it was all he could do to stick to his work. But he held on till the evening, when, watching his opportunity, he slipped from the house and made his way, with the help of an omnibus, to the hall.

It was dire work waiting till the door to the orchestra was opened. The air was cold, his lungs heavily oppressed, and his languor almost overpowering. But Paradise was within that closed door, and he was passing through the pains of death to enter into bliss! When at length it seemed to yield to his prayers, he almost fell in the rush, but the good-humoured crowd itself succoured the pale youth, and helped him in: to look at him was to see that he was ill!

The moment the music began, he forgot every discomfort. For, with the first chord of the violins, as if ushered in and companied by the angels themselves of the sweet sounds, Barbara came flitting down the centre of the wide space toward her usual seat. The rows of faces that filled the area were but the waves on which floated the presence of Barbara; the music was the natural element of her being; it flowed from her as from its fountain, radiated from her like odour. It fashioned around her a nimbus of sound, like that made by the light issuing from the blessed ones, as beheld by Dante, which revealed their presence but hid them in its radiance, as the moth is hid in the silk of its cocoon. Richard felt entirely well. The warmth entered into him, and met the warmth generated in him. All was peace and hope and bliss, quaintest mingling of expectation and fruition. Even Arthur Lestrange beside Barbara could not blast his joy. He saw him occasionally offer some small attention; he saw her carelessly accept or refuse it. Barbara gazed at him anxiously, he thought; but he did not know he looked ill; he had forgotten himself.

When the concert was over, he hastened from the orchestra. The moment he issued, the cold wind seized and threatened to strangle him, but he conquered in the struggle, and reached the human torrent debouching in Regent-street. Against it he made gradual way, until he stood near the inner door of the hall. In a minute or two he saw her come, slowly with the crowd, her hand on Arthur's arm, her eyes anxiously searching for Richard. The moment they found him, her course took a drift toward him, and her face grew white as his, for she saw more plainly that he was