"Miss Harford,"--he dropped into a chair at her side and leaned towards her,--"to-night, when I went into his room, I thought he was sleeping, but he opened his eyes and saw me standing beside him, and then----"

The doctor cleared his throat and steadied his voice, which was shaking with emotion--"'Hullo, Rob!' he said. It was only a whisper, but I tell you the old boyhood's name nearly did for me. 'Have I been dreaming, or was Phil here?'

"'Yes, she was here,' I answered as lightly as I could.

"'Will she come?' he asked eagerly.

"'She will come,' I said. 'But you have been ill, and you must get a bit stronger first.'"

The doctor paused, and for a few moments there was silence, broken only by the words he was muttering under his breath, "Hullo, Rob! Hullo, Rob!"

"May I ask a question?" said Philippa at last.

"Ask as many as you like," he replied quickly.

"Is his--condition--the state he has been in for all these years, I mean--is it--was it the result of the accident, or----"

"I think I know what you want to say. You want to know to what extent his long illness was due to the disappointment he suffered?"

She nodded.

"It is very difficult to say; but this I know, that had he been at the time of the accident a man of good physique--which he undoubtedly was--and had there been no adverse circ.u.mstances to complicate the case, he would have recovered, and in course of time have been as sound in brain as you or I. But quiet of mind, peace of mind, contentment, are absolutely essential to recovery in such cases, and these were exactly what he lacked. He fretted incessantly for the presence of the woman he cared for so deeply--this made rest impossible, and it became an obsession, a fixed idea, and his brain could not stand the strain.

This is hardly a technical explanation, but I want to put it in such a way that you can understand."

"Would nothing have done him any good?" asked Philippa. "No treatment, or operation?"

"All that has been possible in the way of treatment has been carried out, but operation was out of the question; and, indeed, if it had been deemed advisable Lady Louisa would never have agreed to it. She said, and there was truth in her argument, that all the surgeons in the world could not restore him what he missed and craved for. And now--at last--it seems that a miracle has been performed, and you are here to save him."

"What do you want me to do?" she asked in a low voice.

"I want you to go to him, to be with him occasionally, to content him, to give him a little happiness--for all the years he has missed--a little happiness--until----"

"Until?"

"Until he--dies--or----"

"Or?"

"We can't think of the future; we must just go on from day to day. I know it is much to ask of you, a stranger, but I have no choice but to ask it. Think it over. For a day or two I can keep him quiet, but not for longer. Take a day or two to decide."

"I will think it over. I cannot decide now--indeed, indeed I cannot,"

said Philippa earnestly. "It is not that my heart is not wrung with pity. It is the most pitiful thing I ever heard of; and if I--a stranger, as you truly say--feel it pitiful, what must it be to you who have known him always?"

Tears were standing in her eyes. Apart from the tragedy there was something very touching in this man's affection and sorrow for his friend. Neither gruffness of tone nor shortness of manner could disguise the strength of the underlying feeling.

"What has his life been?" she asked. "What has he done?"

"Waited," answered the doctor shortly. "Just waited. Nothing more nor less. He has occupied himself a little for a few moments at a time.

He has read, but does not remember what he reads, and the same book serves him over and over again. He has painted a little, but always the same thing--a woman's face--sketchy--unfinished, but recognisable; and then thrown aside to commence another--but always the same face.

But never for one day in all these years has he forgotten the violets."

"What violets?"

"It was his custom during their short engagement to give her a bunch of violets every morning. They were her favourite flower, and he took a good deal of trouble to procure them, and when, after his accident, the season for their blooming pa.s.sed, and there were none, it distressed him so terribly that his mother, Lady Louisa, insured that there should be a constant supply for him.

"You will see the long line of gla.s.s lights in the kitchen garden.

These are exclusively for his violets. He always asks for them, and places them in a vase of water in front of her portrait. A little thing, but very pathetic, isn't it?"

"Does he speak?"

"Oh yes. He has always received me with some polite remark, as if I were a perfect stranger whom he had never seen before, but he always seemed in a hurry to get rid of me. Sometimes he would excuse his haste by saying he was expecting a visitor. It was just the same when he saw Mrs. Goodman. He was perfectly civil, but evidently impatient of anything or any one who disturbed him, who distracted his attention from his incessant waiting and listening. It is so difficult to know how much he has really understood. Sometimes I think that under the cloud he may really be aware of a great deal more than we give him credit for, but he shows no sign of it."

"Does he see Major Heathcote?"

"Sometimes; not very often. When the Major and his wife first came to live here they were most anxious to do everything in their power to make his life as happy as possible; but after a while they realised what I had told them from the first, and that was, that the more he was undisturbed the more content he was. Or rather I should say the less distressed, for he was never content. There was never a moment when I felt I could say, 'Now he is not thinking of her; now he has really forgotten that he is waiting for her.' He takes the Major for his own half-brother, William Heathcote. Bill, he was always called, like his son Bill, the Major. Francis never knew his half-brother very intimately; there was a great disparity in their ages, and Bill never got on very well with his step-mother, Lady Louisa--or rather Mrs. Bill didn't, which came to the same thing. They never came here very much."

"Didn't he know his mother?"

The doctor shrugged his shoulders. "Who can tell? He never appeared to. He was just the same to her as he was to any one else who entered his room--quite polite, but glad when they went away."

"How awful for her!" cried Philippa.

"Yes, it was awful. She was a wonderful woman--one of the old type.

She had no notion of admitting the outside world into her affairs, or of discussing her inmost feelings with any one. A woman of dauntless courage, old Lady Louisa; and if some people thought her hard it was not to be wondered at; she was a bit hard, but it was merely a sort of armour she put on in self-defence. She fought every inch of the way--every inch. She never lost patience, even after hope was gone.

Everything she could think of she did, trying endless devices to interest and amuse him--for years Francis drove with her every day.

And finally she accepted the truth with the same courage with which she had fought against it--the courage that knows when it is beaten--and ceased to try and rouse him. He hasn't been outside his room for years now. Many people don't know he lives here--new-comers to the place, I mean; for the older folk in the village, who reverenced Lady Louisa and loved him, respected her wishes too much to chatter. Which is saying a good deal, isn't it? For it takes a good bit to stay a gossip's tongue. But her will was law in the place, and I never heard of any one attempting to dispute it. I know she suffered agonies of mind, but I never knew her break down until just at the last, when she was dying.

She kept death at bay by sheer strength of will for weeks, simply because she couldn't bear to leave him. He was her only son--her only child. And her last words were, 'Let him come soon, O G.o.d; let him come soon.' Go and look at her grave and read the inscription she wrote out herself for it. Poor Lady Louisa! and poor Francis!"

"Did you know my father?" asked the girl after a while.

"Yes; I knew him, but not so well as I knew your aunt. I was a good deal away after my boyhood, and my holidays later on did not always coincide with his visits here, but I met him several times."

"He never spoke to me of his sister."

"That I can understand. It is only what I should have expected. I happened to see your father, Miss Harford, as he left this house when he came here after the accident. He had seen his sister, he had failed in his efforts to persuade her, all his arguments had been of no avail, and his distress was beyond all words. He had loved Francis Heathcote--he was his most intimate friend--and he had adored his sister. Up to that time I think he had firmly believed that she could do no wrong. And then, to find that under stress of trouble she had failed so grievously nearly broke his heart. And yet"--the doctor spoke slowly and thoughtfully--"yet--I think still as I thought then, and as I told him that day, that she should not be too greatly blamed."

"But of course she was to blame," cried Philippa hotly. "Her behaviour was inhuman."

"So it seems to us," he replied. "But we must remember what she was--a spoilt child--a b.u.t.terfly. Your father himself spoilt her absolutely.

She had never been crossed--had never known a moment's anxiety--never even been obliged to do anything she did not like--to do anything except please herself. She was beautiful--most beautiful; and if she was shallow, well, then the very shallowness only made her more attractive. She fascinated us all." The man's voice took on a softer tone as he spoke. "Francis loved her--madly--pa.s.sionately. His overwhelming joy in their betrothal was a thing never to be forgotten by those who saw it. And yet--thinking it over, as I have thought it over so often--was there ever a single action of hers--a single spontaneously unselfish action on her part--which should have led us to suppose, to expect that she would rise high in any crisis? We were all at her feet. We never noticed that she was utterly self-centred, because we, with all the world, were ready to satisfy her lightest wish. No, no, it was we who were wrong--wrong in our estimate of her.

We expected too much--we expected more than she was able to give--more than a woman of her character was able to give. She simply acted as she had acted all her life--doing what she liked best--refraining from doing what was uncongenial--what did not amuse her. Poor, beautiful b.u.t.terfly! she was broken sadly at the finish. By all accounts her married life was very unhappy. She did not live long."

"You are very charitable," said Philippa reflectively.

"No," he replied in his abrupt way, "I'm not. I'm merely wise after the event, which is an easy thing enough. Ah, well, if Francis had married her the chances are she would have failed him--if not in one way, then in another. He endowed her with a half-angelic personality which in truth was not hers at all. He placed her on a high pedestal from which she must have fallen at the first buffet of life, and life gives plenty of buffets, although perhaps you are too young to know the truth of that at present." He rose as he spoke. "You are not so like her as I thought you were when I first saw you," he went on, standing and looking intently at the girl. "When I first saw you to-day I thought you were just the very living image of your aunt, but you are not. If you will forgive my plain speaking, I should like to say that you are not so beautiful, but that you have more soul in your face--more strength of character And it is what I see written there that makes me dare to hope that you will see that we are in your hands.

But there, we won't say any more about that now. It isn't fair to urge you, although G.o.d knows I wish to. Let me know your decision in a day or two, and I will do my best to keep him quiet until then. When does the Major return?"

Philippa hastily told him of d.i.c.kie's illness and the sudden departure of his anxious parents, and also of the telegram she had received.

The doctor pulled at his beard.