Part 10

Dora did not move. She was pale as death. She looked at him with eyes that appeared to see nothing.

Philip made as if he would seize her in his arms. She recoiled affrighted.

"Don't touch me! Don't come near me!" she cried in a voice that gurgled.

"Dora, what has happened? Heavens, you frighten me. What is the matter? Why, you are trembling, you can scarcely stand. Speak, speak, what is it?"

"Where have you been and where have you come from?"

"But I have just told you what happened to me. I missed the nine o'clock train and there was an accident ... but what is the use of trying to explain anything to you in your present state? You evidently do not understand. I ask you again. What has been happening here to put you in such a state?"

"Ah, ah, he asks me what has happened!" she hissed, snatching the paper from Philip's hands. "This has happened. Your ambition is satisfied now. Here is the signature that gives you half a million of roubles, the gold for which you did not hesitate to make me submit to the society of a betrayer of women, a protector of Mimi Latouche, a man against whom my whole womanhood revolted. Stung by your heartless indifference to my pleadings, stung by your taunts that I no longer helped you, I have goaded myself to endure his presence constantly. And now, I think my task is ended; I have paid the price; so take the paper--it is yours. It is signed. The gold will be handed to you."

"Dora, for God's sake, tell me, what does it mean? You never spoke to me like this before," gasped Philip, in a voice choking with anger and excitement.

"Hush!" continued Dora, "your ambition is realised. Your fortune is more than doubled; but when you are counting it up, think of me, your wife, in the arms of that man, every fibre of my powerless body revolting at the kisses of his polluted lips. Yes, the lips of that libertine have soiled mine; on my face, on my arms, he pressed his burning kisses. Look, look at this arm. See for yourself the mark that will not go. I am stained, contaminated. Oh! am I mad? No, I have drunk the bitter draught, I have gone through the mire of degradation; and now, is the nightmare ended? Are you satisfied, or shall I call him back to offer him the rest?"

"I will kill him!" cried Philip.

"Ah, rather kill me; that would be more generous," exclaimed Dora. "Take your money, and now let me go--unless," she added, with a sneer, "you have some other War Minister that you wish to take your invention; think, I am here to pay the price they may exact for their approval."

"Dora, this is madness--you are out of your mind."

"I soon should be if I stayed here."

Dora broke off suddenly. The coming of the servant flashed across her mind. He had brought a message. What was it?

"Yes, yes, of course, I remember. Gabrielle sent for me a few moments ago--she had called the doctor to Eva--Eva! Ah, let me go to my child," she cried, waving Philip aside as he was going to speak again.

But before she reached the door, Gabrielle had opened it.

"Are you coming?" said the poor girl, with tears in her voice.

"Eva?"

"Yes, she is worse; it is diphtheria."

Dora realised now the full import of the former message. With one horror-struck look at the distressed white face before her, she rushed from the room uttering a broken cry--

"Eva!"

Gabrielle followed after her, and Philip was left crushed, stunned, incapable yet of understanding clearly the terrible scene which he had just witnessed, or the new terror with which he was brought face to face.

XIV

EVA

Philip dropped into an armchair. His forehead was bathed in perspiration. He was seized with a convulsive trembling, caused by the rage that he felt at not being able to avenge there and then the outrageous conduct of General Sabaroff towards his wife. If he had known at that moment where to find the Russian, he would have gone straightway and had it out with him. He went through a torment of impotent fury and disappointment at thinking that his arrival had been but a few moments too late.

"Fool that I was!" he cried, "what have I done? Then Dora thinks"--he dared not utter his thought--"and, if so, I am guilty in her mind of the vilest, the most despicable act that a man can commit--it is a frightful idea! And yet my indifference, my insistence that Dora should receive that man, when she implored me not to oblige her to submit to his company--Sabaroff loves her still then? Or does he, too, believe that he was encouraged by me? Oh, but the thought is horrible! The idea of it is maddening. Fool that I have been!"

For the first time he saw the enormity of his conduct. He called himself coward and criminal. In that dreadful hour he awoke from his dream and became himself again. The veil fell from his eyes, the transformation was complete. To do him justice there was no more inventor, no more blindly ambitious seeker after wealth, but the Philip of former days with no thought but for Dora. He would have given, that night, his last farthing for a smile from her!

Philip rose suddenly from his seat. He must take a resolution on the spot. He was face to face with a vital crisis on which all his future life depended. His first impulse was to go to Dora and throw himself at her feet to implore her pardon. "No," he said to himself, "as long as that contract exists, there is nothing to be done." He held it in his hands, that paper which had cost Dora so much. It burned to the touch. He looked at it twice, and he read it through. His mind was at once made up--tear up the thing, and fling it in the face of Sabaroff!

During this time there was much movement, much sound of coming and going on the staircase and in the hall. Suddenly Philip recognised the voice of Dr. Templeton saying, "It is the only way to save her, at least the only hope." Upon this a servant came rapidly downstairs, and Philip stopped him in the hall to ask--

"Where are you going?"

"To St. George's Hospital," was the reply.

"For Miss Eva? Is she worse?"

"Yes, sir; it appears that they are going to perform tracheotomy," said the man, who had heard the word and repeated it correctly.

Philip flew upstairs. When he reached the door of Eva's room, saw the child half choking and unconscious, and saw Dora kneeling by the bedside, he dared not enter, but stood in the doorway--heart-broken, pale, and immobile as death. That which crowned his misery and despair was the fact that Dora had not thought of sending down for him in such a moment as this. With difficulty he repressed the sob that rose from his heart. He realised then all the depth of the abyss that separated him now from his wife and child, an abyss of his own digging. No, he, adoring Eva as he did, dared not penetrate into the room where she lay.

Almost immediately a surgeon and two students arrived from the hospital. Philip let them pass, and then took up his post of observation again; but when he saw them open the case that contained the shining steel instruments and little sponges, the needles and all the apparatus for their operation; when he saw the surgeon sign to Dora to rise and, by a touch firm and gentle, direct her to leave the bedroom, Philip could bear up no longer, all his courage forsook him. He fled to the library, and there let his choking tears have way. Wretched and forsaken, he broke down utterly.

"O God!" he cried, "it is too much; I have not deserved such punishment."

Gabrielle was a great help to the doctors, and prompt and reliable in her movements--a nurse of the first order. She watched with a calm, clear vision the work of the bistoury on the little throat, and knew exactly when to hand the implements necessary, as the work proceeded, and earned the compliment of the surgeon thereupon; but it was not merely her nurse's intelligence that was at work, it was her love for the child she ached to save.

The preparation being completed, the surgeon with a hand at once deft and rapid, introduced the tube into the trachea. Eva opened her eyes almost immediately. A flush of living colour returned to her face, and she breathed freely again. The tube was then bandaged into place, and a long silk hankerchief tied firmly round the throat. Soon the child's face lost its aspect of deathly struggle, and put on a smiling look of profound relief and happy peace. Her countenance lit up with a seraphic light; it was as though the child's soul had just been wafted back to its dwelling-place from a visit to paradise.

When all was done, Dora was fetched and shown the success of the operation.

"Then she is saved!" she cried, clasping her hands and lifting to heaven a glance of thanksgiving.

"Not yet," said the doctor; "there remains the morbid action to cure; but there is hope, every hope. Only you must watch the child with extreme attention; she must not be left for a moment. She must not be allowed to move for some time. If the tube got displaced, or if the heart, which is very feeble, should receive the least shock, everything would be over in a moment. But," added he, "I confide your child to this lady's care," indicating Gabrielle; "I have seldom met with a nurse so gifted. Rely in all security upon her; I have given her my instructions, and she knows to the full the importance of them."

The surgeon bowed to Dora, and departed.

Dora returned to the bedside on tiptoe, and, placing her finger on her lips, made signs to Eva that she was to keep perfectly quiet; then, throwing her a kiss and a smile of a guardian angel, she sat down beside the child. Her face betrayed no sign of weakness, expressed neither grief nor despair; it was scarcely sad. She had the look of a man who throws himself into the sea, to try and save some beloved friend in deadly peril of drowning.

Philip did not go to bed. He begged Gabrielle to come two or three times during the night to tell him how the child fared, and he remained in the library. Dora watched all night by Eva's bed. She was valiant, and inspired others with her own brave spirit. She had thrown aside the thought of all that had happened in the drawing-room a few hours before; far, indeed, from her thoughts was the man who had insulted her, and who no longer existed in her thoughts--the distracted mother had swamped the indignant woman. It was with death that she had to fight now, and she fought with a _sang-froid_ and a courage that were the astonishment and admiration of all who surrounded her.

The morning and the afternoon passed without new disquieting symptoms arising, and at night the doctor left his patient going on satisfactorily.

The following morning, about seven o'clock, Dora, worn out with excitement, had fallen into a dose.

Gabrielle went to tell Philip that Eva also was sleeping, and that such sleep was a very good sign. Their hopes rose considerably. Philip could not resist the longing he had to go and look upon his wife and child, both sleeping calmly at last, unconscious of pain and anxiety. He crept stealthily upstairs, opened very softly the door of the dear child's room, and with loving eyes looked towards the bed. Unhappily, Eva had just woke up. She saw in the doorway her father whom she loved, and had not seen for several days; she raised herself eagerly and tried to call, "Daddy." The little form fell back heavily upon the pillow.

When Gabrielle came into the room again, Dora was still sleeping. Eva slept too, but it was the sleep from which none waken.

XV

THE SEPARATION

When Dora awoke, Gabrielle was standing at the bedside, motionless, beautiful in her impassive grace, and looking like one of the angels that painters represent at the bedside of children whose souls they have come to bear to the abode of the seraphim.

Dora looked at Gabrielle, then at the child. With heartrending cry she threw herself on Eva's body. The struggle was over, and she had lost the battle. Her strength forsook her, all her being seemed to be crushed. She slipped inanimate on the floor. They bore her to her own room, where, for more than a week, she lay benumbed by her grief, unconscious of everything, hovering between life and death. None but Gabrielle and Hobbs were allowed access to her chamber. Philip was excluded by the doctor's command. In her delirium the name of her husband was often on her lips. "Philip," she would cry, "murderer! you have killed my child." He had been indeed her murderer! involuntarily it is true, but nevertheless he had killed her. If he had resisted his desire to look upon his child, she would probably have recovered, surrounded as she was by the most assiduous care. Her death had been accidental. In moving, and in trying to lift her poor little fragile body into a sitting posture, she had caused the derangement of the tube, and the heart had been suddenly stopped. Choking and syncope instantly did their dreadful work, and all was over.

Neither Dora nor Gabrielle ever knew, however, that Philip had been the involuntary cause of Eva's death. He himself never suspected the terrible truth.

"In spite of my injunctions," said the doctor, "the child has been allowed to move herself. She must have sat up in bed."

The last words that Eva had said to her mother came back constantly to Dora's memory. "How sad it is here! Oh, mama, how I wish we were in our other house; you know, the one where we lived when we were happy." Poor little darling! "When we were happy." A phrase like that in the mouth of a child of five, intended by nature for joy and brightness, had made Dora's heart bleed. The last words of the child were the irrevocable sentence of the father. Tears might have relieved Dora's desolate heart, and her faithful watchers hoped day by day for the crisis which never came. But she lay in numb paralysing grief, and never a tear fell. Her life was not in danger, but her reason was. The delirium continued day and night. Often she did not know her two devoted nurses, Gabrielle and Hobbs. Her utterances were mostly incoherent sentences in which three names occurred constantly--Philip, Eva, Sabaroff. "Is that man gone?" and she would seek upon her arm for traces of the loathed kisses he had placed there. "Where is Philip? Gone too, no doubt." Then she would resume: "Eva? Yes, I am alone, all alone; everybody is gone." The scene quite unnerved the two dear women who were enforced spectators of it. They would take her hands and kiss them--Gabrielle with affectionate warmth, and Hobbs with the most touching respect.

The days dragged on, but the doctor did not despair. Dora's constitution was so strong, her will so powerful, her courage so lofty always, that there might be a crisis at any moment, and a favourable change might well ensue. He counted upon help in the carrying out of anything he might plan for the patient's good. He was well aware of all that had been passing latterly in the house. He was the friend and confidant of both husband and wife. Nothing had been hidden from him, not even the scene between Sabaroff and Dora. He advised Philip to leave the house. "You must do it," said he; "only time can cure your wife. Have patience. Go away for a few days. She is dazed; an explanation would but irritate her more--she is not in a state to listen. I quite expect to see her recover her mental faculties as suddenly as she lost them. The strength of her character is prodigious, and that strength will probably show itself in some sudden decision. Do not cross her in anything," added he to Gabrielle, who had come to receive his directions. "Whatever decision she may take when the crisis is over, be very careful to fall in with it. I do not despair of anything, neither for her nor for you, my dear fellow," said he, shaking hands with Philip, in whose eyes tears were glistening.

Philip consented to obey. He left his house, went to Paris for two days, and on his return to London remained a week at the Alexandra Hotel, a few yards from his house, which he visited twice or thrice a day for news of Dora. We shall see later how he employed his time during these few days of banishment.

* * * * *

Eva had been dead ten days. One morning, when Dora awoke from an excellent night of ten hours' sleep, Gabrielle and Hobbs were astonished to see their patient calm, and not only in full possession of her faculties, but apparently strong and courageous. The evening before she had wept for the first time, but the crisis had ended there.

Dora asked for breakfast. When Gabrielle reminded her that she had some medicine to take first, Dora reiterated her demand in an imperative fashion. "I tell you I am hungry," said she, and she not only asked for her breakfast, but she chose her own food. Her orders were obeyed. She ate a small boiled sole, an egg, and two slices of toast, and drank a cup of tea. Gabrielle and Hobbs were fairly amazed. They looked at Dora, they looked at each other, they could not believe their eyes. It was a resurrection.

"I am going to get up," said Dora, when the tray had been removed.

"You cannot think of such a thing," said Gabrielle.

"I tell you, I am going to get up," repeated Dora; "I am better, much better."

Her eyes shot lightning glances. Her two nurses were dumfounded, and knew not what to do. The doctor had not yet arrived on his morning round.

"Do have patience, ma'am. Wait at least until the doctor comes," said Hobbs, thoroughly alarmed. And she insisted upon it that her mistress must not get up until Dr. Templeton came.

"I shall not wait for anything," said Dora. "I tell you that I am going to get up."

She left her bed, swayed for a moment on her feet; but presently, standing bravely up without support of any kind, she said, with a laugh--

"You see quite well that I am better. I am cured. I shall dress and go out."

"But you are crazy," said Gabrielle.

"You are joking, ma'am," added Hobbs.

It is true that the doctor had told them to do nothing which might cross her, but the two good women said to themselves: "Yet, if she wanted to throw herself out of the window, we should certainly not let her do it. And to go out in her present state is probably about as dangerous." They did not know what to do. The doctor did not come. Still less did they know what to think. Was Dora completely mad, or was this some marvellous and mysterious metamorphosis? No, she was not mad. Dora possessed something which has saved thousands of much-tried human beings from spiritual and moral shipwreck, and has reattached them to life again. She possessed that internal god whom the Greeks called _enthusiasm_, that divine transport which, lifting the soul above itself, excites to great resolutions and lofty actions.

Eva was no more. Philip was gone, and little she cared to know where. She was free, mistress of her actions. She had no longer husband or child. Well! there was still left to her a third motive for living, Art. The mother and the wife had ceased to exist, but the artist was still alive.

Gabrielle tried once more to dissuade Dora from going out, but without success; no argument could influence her. She consented, however, that Gabrielle should accompany her. She dressed herself without help. The mourning raiment which had been ordered she had not yet been able to have fitted, but she found in her wardrobe a black dress which served. A hat which Hobbs in a few minutes trimmed with crape completed her toilette. She did not appear to be in the least excited. She was calm, deliberate, sure of each of her words, sure of each of her movements. Gabrielle, who was under the influence of this powerful will, obeyed her sister's most trivial wishes, and appeared to be completely reassured about her. She begged her, however, for her own satisfaction, to let her feel her pulse and take her temperature. The pulse was normal, and the temperature did not indicate the least trace of fever. The case appeared to her to be a most exceptional one, almost phenomenal in fact, but she was reassured and much comforted. She no longer felt any anxiety, especially as the morning promised to be fine, and the open air could certainly do Dora nothing but good.

"Well! where are we going?" said Gabrielle, whose curiosity was keenly aroused.

"To St. John's Wood," replied Dora.

"To St. John's Wood?"

"Yes, I am going to take a studio there. I have something left to me still. I can paint, and paint I will!"

Gabrielle was amazed. She gazed with affectionate eyes at Dora, and kissed her. It was happiness to see her reviving interest in life.

"Send for a cab, darling," said Dora.

When the vehicle was at the door, Dora, with Gabrielle at her side, descended the steps with a firm foot, seated herself in the cab, and gave the driver an address in Finchley Road.

She was set down in front of the office of an estate agent, and told the driver to wait. There she was given several addresses of apartments to let. Two or three rooms, one of them large and possessing a good north light, was what she wanted.

After a round of inspection, she fixed her choice upon a set of rooms a few yards from Elm Avenue. The place suited her requirements in every respect, and the price was reasonable, thirty pounds a year.

She was not asked for references, for her name was well known in these regions. The people who let her the rooms thought that Philip had need of a studio there for some special work, and that his wife had been sent to choose a suitable one for him.

"When do you wish to take possession, madam?" asked the agent, who had accompanied her.

"At once," replied Dora, "that is, to-morrow or the next day."

And the whole matter was arranged then and there.

When Dora got into her cab again, she began to talk almost gaily. She looked happy once more. It was a glimpse of the old Dora that Gabrielle had known all her life, but missed for a while, and now rejoiced to see again.

At the end of a couple of hours they were at home again. Poor Hobbs had been a prey to terrible fears, all the while conjuring up in her mind visions of her beloved mistress being brought back on a litter in a dying condition. She had spent the time watching at the window in mortal anxiety.

Dora stepped briskly out of the cab, paid the driver, and threw her arms round the poor woman, who looked more dead than alive.

"Ah, at last," gasped Hobbs. "Oh, ma'am how could you! how could you!"

So saying, she burst into tears, and then began to smile again on seeing Dora standing so alert and on the point of making fun of her.

"But what do you mean, my dear Hobbs?" said Dora. "I feel quite recovered. The fresh air has done me a lot of good and has given me a ferocious appetite."

"Well, well! I declare!" exclaimed Hobbs, comforted a little by these words and the sight of her patient. But she went on wondering whether she was dreaming or whether Dora had gone clean mad.

"Hobbs," said Dora, "we must make haste about our preparations. We leave the house to-morrow, and, God be praised, never to return," she added.

"To-morrow, ma'am!" rejoined Hobbs, with a look that seemed to express the impossibility of further astonishment.

"Yes, to-morrow, we get to a new home and take leave of this one."

"She has already taken leave of something else," thought the distressed servant.

"We go to St. John's Wood! But why do you stare so, Hobbs? You are not going to remain here and let me go without you, surely?"

"How could I think of doing such a thing!" said poor Hobbs, really hurt by the suggestion.

And she fell to laughing and crying softly to herself without knowing why, thoroughly bewildered at the turn things had taken.