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Three Weeks

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<h2 id="id00875" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XXI</h2> Have any of you who read crept back to life from nearly beyond the grave? Crept back to find it shorn of all that made it fair? After hours of delirium to awaken in great weakness to a sense of hideous anguish and loss—to the prospect of days of aching void and hopeless longing, to the hourly, momentary sting of remembrance of things vaster than death, more dear than life itself? If you have come through this valley of the shadow, then you can know what the first days of returning consciousness meant to Paul. He never really questioned the finality of her decree, he sensed it meant parting for ever. And yet, with that spring of eternal hope which animates all living souls, unbidden arguings and possibilities rose in his enfeebled brain, and deepened his unrest. Thus his progress towards convalescence was long and slow. And all this time his father and Tompson had nursed him in the old Venetian palazzo with tenderest devotion. The Italian servants had been left, paid up for a month, but the lady and her Russian retinue had vanished, leaving no trace. Both Tompson and Sir Charles knew almost the whole story now from Paul's ravings, and neither spoke of it—except that Tompson supplied some links to complete Sir Charles' picture. "She was the most splendid lady you could wish to see, Sir Charles," the stolid creature finished with. "Her servants worshipped her—and if Mr. Verdayne is ill now, he is ill for no less than a Queen." This fact comforted Tompson greatly, but Paul's father found in it no consolation. The difficulty had been to prevent his mother from descending upon them. She must ever be kept in ignorance of this episode in her son's life. She belonged to the class of intellect which could never have understood. It would have been an undying shock and horrified grief to the end of her life—excellent, loving, conventional lady! So after the first terrible danger was over, Sir Charles made light of their son's illness. Paul and he were enjoying Venice, he said, and would soon be home. "D—d hard luck the boy getting fever like this!" he wrote in his laconic style, "but one never could trust foreign countries' drains!" And the Lady Henrietta waited in unsuspecting, well-bred patience. Those were weary days for every one concerned. It wrung his father's heart to see Paul prostrate there, as weak as an infant. All his splendid youth and strength conquered by this raging blast. It was sad to have to listen to his ever-constant moan: "Darling, come back to me—darling, my Queen." And even after he regained consciousness, it was equally pitiful to watch him lying nerveless and white, blue shadows on his once fresh skin. And most pitiful of all were his hands, now veined and transparent, falling idly upon the sheet. But at least the father realised it could have been no ordinary woman whose going caused the shock which—even after a life of three weeks' continual emotion—could prostrate his young Hercules. She must have been worth something—this tiger Queen. And one day, contrary to his usual custom, he addressed Tompson: "What sort of a looking woman, Tompson?" And Tompson, although an English valet, did not reply, "Who, Sir Charles?"—he just rounded his eyes stolidly and said in his monotonous voice: "She was that forcible-looking, a man couldn't say when he got close, she kind of dazzled him. She had black hair, and a white face, and—and—witch's eyes, but she was very kind and overpowering, haughty and generous. Any one would have known she was a Queen." "Young?" asked Sir Charles. Tompson smoothed his chin: "I could not say, Sir Charles. Some days about twenty-five, and other days past thirty. About thirty-three to thirty-five, I expect she was, if the truth were known." "Pretty?" The eyes rounded more and more. "Well, she was so fascinatin', I can't say, Sir Charles—the most lovely lady I ever did see at times, Sir Charles." "Humph," said Paul's father, and then relapsed into silence. "She'd a beast of a husband; he might have been a King, but he was no gentleman," Tompson ventured to add presently, fearing the "Humph" perhaps meant disapprobation of this splendid Queen. "Her servants were close, and did not speak good English, so I could not get much out of them, but the man Vasili, who came the last days, did say in a funny lingo, which I had to guess at, as how he expected he should have to kill him some time. Vasili had a scar on his face as long as your finger that he'd got defending the Queen from her husband's brutality, when he was the worse for drink, only last year. And Mr. Verdayne is so handsome. It is no wonder, Sir Charles—" "That will do, Tompson," said Sir Charles, and he frowned. The fatal letter, carefully sealed up in a new envelope, and the leather case were in his despatch-box. Tompson had handed them to him on his arrival. And one day when Paul appeared well enough to be lifted into a long chair on the side loggia, his father thought fit to give them to him. Paul's apathy seemed paralysing. The days had passed, since the little Italian doctor had pronounced him out of danger, in one unending languid quietude. He expressed interest in no single thing. He was polite, and indifferent, and numb. "He must be roused now," Sir Charles said to the doctor. "It is too hot for Venice, he must be moved to higher air," and the little man had nodded his head. So this warm late afternoon, as he lay under the mosquito curtains—which the coming of June had made necessary in this paradise—his father said to him: "I have a letter and a parcel of yours, Paul: you had better look at them—we hope to start north in a day or two—you must get to a more bracing place." Then he had pushed them under the net-folds, and turned his back on the scene. The blood rushed to Paul's face, but left him deathly pale after a few moments. And presently he broke the seal. The minute Sphinx in the corner of the paper seemed to mock at him. Indeed, life was a riddle of anguish and pain. He read the letter all over—and read it again. The passionate words of love warmed him now that he had passed the agony of the farewell. One sentence he had hardly grasped before, in particular held balm. "Sweetheart," it said, "you must not grieve—think always of the future and of our hope. Our love is not dead with our parting, and one day there will be the living sign—" Yes, that thought was comfort—but how should he know? Then he turned to the leather case. His fingers were still so feeble that with difficulty he pressed the spring to open it. He glanced up at his father's distinguished-looking back outlined against the loggia's opening arches. It appeared uncompromising. A fixed determination to stare at the oleanders below seemed the only spirit animating this parent. Yes—he must open the box. It gave suddenly with a jerk, and there lay a dog's collar, made of small flexible plates of pure beaten gold, mounted on Russian leather, all of the finest workmanship. And on a slip of paper in his darling's own writing he read: "This is for Pike, my beloved one; let him wear it always—a gift from me." On the collar itself, finely engraved, were the words, "Pike, belonging to Paul Verdayne." Then the floodgates of Paul's numbed soul were opened, a great sob rose in his breast. He covered his face with his hands, and cried like a child. Oh! her dear thought! her dear, tender thought—for Pike! His little friend! And Sir Charles made believe he saw nothing, as he stole from the place, his rugged face twitching a little, and his keen eyes dim. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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