Mrs. Geoffrey Part 67

"I promise you faithfully," says Mona.

"It is too much to ask, but I dread being alone," he goes on, with a quick shudder of fear and repulsion. "It is a dark and terrible journey to take, with no one near who loves one, with no one to feel a single regret when one has departed."

"_I_ shall feel regret," says, Mona, brokenly, the tears running down her cheeks.

"Give me your hand again," says Rodney, after a pause; and when she gives it to him he says, "Do you know this is the nearest approach to real happiness I have ever known in all my careless, useless life? What is it Shakspeare says about the folly of loving 'a bright particular star'? I always think of you when that line comes to my mind. You are the star; mine is the folly."

He smiles again, but Mona is too sad to smile in return.

"How did it happen?" she asks, presently.

"I don't know myself. I wandered in a desultory fas.h.i.+on through the wood on leaving you, not caring to return home just then, and I was thinking of--of you, of course--when I stumbled against something (they tell me it was a gnarled root that had thrust itself above ground), and then there was a report, and a sharp pang; and that was all. I remember nothing. The gamekeeper found me a few minutes later, and had me brought here."

"You are talking too much," says Mona, nervously.

"I may as well talk while I can: soon you will not be able to hear me, when the gra.s.s is growing over me," replies he, recklessly. "It was hardly worth my while to deliver you up that will, was it? Is not Fate ironical? Now it is all as it was before I came upon the scene, and Nicholas has the t.i.tle without dispute. I wish we had been better friends,--he at least was civil to me,--but I was reared with hatred in my heart towards all the Rodneys; I was taught to despise and fear them as my natural enemies, from my cradle."

Then, after a pause, "Where will they bury me?" he asks, suddenly. "Do you think they will put me in the family vault?" He seems to feel some anxiety on this point.

"Whatever you wish shall be done," says Mona earnestly, knowing she can induce Nicholas to accede to any request of hers.

"Are you sure?" asks he, his face brightening. "Remember how they have drawn back from me. I was their own first-cousin,--the son of their father's brother,--yet they treated me as the veriest outcast."

Then Mona says, in a trembling voice and rather disconnectedly, because of her emotion, "Be quite sure you shall be--buried--where all the other baronets of Rodney lie at rest."

"Thank you," murmurs he, gratefully. There is evidently comfort in the thought. Then after a moment or two he goes on again, as though following out a pleasant idea: "Some day, perhaps, that vault will hold you too; and there at least we shall meet again, and be side by side."

"I wish you would not talk of being buried," says Mona, with a sob.

"There is no comfort in the tomb: _there_ our dust may mingle, but in _heaven_ our souls shall meet, I trust,--I hope."

"Heaven," repeats he, with a sigh. "I have forgotten to think of heaven."

"Think of it now, Paul,--now before it is too late," entreats she, piteously. "Try to pray: there is always mercy."

"Pray for me!" says he, in a low tone, pressing her hand. So on her knees, in a subdued voice, sad but earnest, she repeats what prayers she can remember out of the grand Service that belongs to us. One or two sentences from the Litany come to her; and then some words rise from her own heart, and she puts up a pa.s.sionate supplication to heaven that the pa.s.sing soul beside her, however erring, may reach some haven where rest remaineth!

Some time elapses before he speaks again, and Mona is almost hoping he may have fallen into a quiet slumber, when he opens his eyes and says, regretfully,--

"What a different life mine might have been had I known you earlier!"

Then, with a faint flush, that vanishes almost as it comes, as though without power to stay, he says, "Did your husband object to your coming here?"

"Geoffrey? Oh, no. It was he who brought me. He bade me hasten lest you should even imagine me careless about coming. And--and--he desired me to say how he regrets the harsh words he uttered and the harsher thoughts he may have entertained towards you. Forgive him, I implore you, and die in peace with him and all men."

"Forgive him!" says Rodney. "Surely, however unkind the thoughts he may have cherished for me, I must forget and forgive them now, seeing all he has done for me. Has he not made smooth my last hours? Has he not lent me you? Tell him I bear him no ill will."

"I will tell him," says Mona.

He is silent for a full minute; then he says,--

"I have given a paper to Dr. Bland for you: it will explain what I wish.

And, Mona, there are some papers in my room: will you see to them for me and have them burned?"

"I will burn them with my own hands," says Mona.

"How comforting you are!--how you understand," he says, with a quick sigh. "There is something else: that fellow Ridgway, who opened the window for me, he must be seen to. Let him have the money mentioned in the paper, and send him to my mother: she will look after him for my sake. My poor mother!" he draws his breath quickly.

"Shall I write to her?" asks Mona, gently. "Say what you wish done."

"It would be kind of you," says he, gratefully. "She will want to know all, and you will do it more tenderly than the others. Do not dwell upon my sins; and say I died--happy. Let her too have a copy of the paper Dr.

Bland has now."

"I shall remember," says Mona, not knowing what the paper contains. "And who am I, that I should dwell upon the sins of another? Are you tired, Paul? How fearfully pale you are looking!"

He is evidently quite exhausted. His brow is moist, his eyes are sunken, his lips more pallid, more death-like than they were before. In little painful gasps his breath comes fitfully. Then all at once it occurs to Mona that though he is looking at her he does not see her. His mind has wandered far away to those earlier days when England was unknown and when the free life of the colony was all he desired.

As Mona gazes at him half fearfully, he raises himself suddenly on his elbow, and says, in a tone far stronger than he has yet used,--

"How brilliant the moonlight is to-night! See--watch"--eagerly--"how the shadows chase each other down the Ranger's Hill!"

Mona looks up startled. The faint rays of the new-born moon are indeed rus.h.i.+ng through the cas.e.m.e.nt, and are flinging themselves languidly upon the opposite wall, but they are pale and wan, as moonlight is in its infancy, and anything but brilliant. Besides, Rodney's eyes are turned not on them, but on the door that can be seen just over Mona's head, where no beams disport themselves, however weakly.

"Lie down: you will hurt yourself again," she says, trying gently to induce him to return to his former rec.u.mbent position; but he resists her.

"Who has taken my orders about the sheep?" he says, in a loud voice, and in an imperious tone, his eyes growing bright but uncertain. "Tell Grainger to see to it. My father spoke about it again only yesterday.

The upper pastures are fresher--greener----"

His voice breaks: with a groan he sinks back again upon his pillow.

"Mona, are you still there?" he says, with a return to consciousness: "did I dream, or did my father speak to me? How the night comes on!" He sighs wearily. "I am so tired,--so worn out: if I could only sleep!" he murmurs, faintly.

Alas! how soon will fall upon him that eternal sleep from which no man waketh!

His breath grows fainter, his eyelids close.

Some one comes in with a lamp, and places it on a distant table, where its rays cannot distress the dying man.

Dr. Bland, coming into the room, goes up to the bedside and feels his pulse, and tries to put something between his lips, but he refuses to take anything.

"It will strengthen you," he says, persuasively.

"No, it is of no use: it only wearies me. My best medicine, my only medicine, is here," returns Paul, feebly pressing Mona's hand. He is answering the doctor, but he does not look at him. As he speaks, his gaze is riveted upon Mona.

Dr. Bland, putting down the gla.s.s, forbears to torment him further, and moves away; Geoffrey, who has also come in, takes his place. Bending over the dying man, he touches him lightly on the shoulder.

Paul turns his head, and as he sees Geoffrey a quick spasm that betrays fear crosses his face.

"Do not take her away yet,--not yet," he says, in a faint whisper.