Theo: A Sprightly Love Story Part 13

"Yes," answered Theo, sorrowfully.

"Well, then, I say this to you. You have not sacrificed me, you have saved me!"

It was perhaps characteristic of her that she did not say anything more.

The subject dropped here, and she did not renew it.

It was a hard battle which Denis Oglethorpe fought during the next fortnight, in that small chamber of the wayside inn at St. Quentin; and it was a stern antagonist he waged war against--that grim old enemy, Death.

But, with the help of the little doctor, the _vis medicatrix natural_, and his three nurses, he gained the victory at length, and conquered, only by a hair's breadth. The fierce fire of the brain wearing itself out, left him as weak as a child, and for days after he returned to consciousness, he had scarcely power to move a limb or utter a word.

When first he opened his eyes upon life again, no one was in the room but Priscilla Gower; and so it was upon Priscilla Gower that his first conscious glance fell.

He looked at her for a minute, before he found strength to speak. But at last his faltering voice came back to him.

"Priscilla," he whispered weakly. "Is it you? Poor girl!"

She bent over him with a calm face, but she did not attempt to caress him.

"Yes," she said. "Don't try your strength too much yet, Denis. It is I."

His heavy wearied eyes searched hers for an instant.

"And no one else?" he whispered again. "Is no one else here, Priscilla?"

"There is no one else in the room with me," she answered, quietly. "The rest are up-stairs. You must not talk, Denis. Try to be quiet."

There was hardly any need for the caution, for his eyes were closing again, even then, through sheer exhaustion.

Theo was in her room lying down and trying to rest. But half an hour later, when Pamela came up to her bedside, the dark eyes flew wide open in an instant.

"What is it, Pam?" she asked. "Is he worse again?"

Pam sat down on the bedside, and looked at her with a sort of pity for the almost haggard young face drooping against the white pillow.

"No," she said. "He is better. The doctor said he would be, and he is.

Theo, he has spoken to Priscilla Gower, and knows her."

Theo sat up in bed, white and still--all white, it seemed, but her large hollow eyes.

"Pamela," she said. "I must go home."

"Where?" said Pam.

The white face turned toward her pitifully.

"I don't know," the girl answered, her voice fluttering almost as weakly as Denis' had done. "I don't know--somewhere, though. To Paris again--or to Downport," with a faint shudder. And then, all at once she flung up her arms wildly, and dropped upon them, face downward.

"Oh, Pam," she cried out, "take me back to Downport, and let me die. I have no right here, and I had better go away. Oh, why did I ever come?

Why did I ever come?"

She was sobbing in a hysterical, strained way, that was fairly terrible.

Pamela bent over her, and touched her disordered hair with a singularly light touch. The tears welled up into her faded eyes. Just at the moment she could think of nothing but the day, so far away now, when her own heart had been torn up by the roots by one fierce grasp of the hand of relentless fate--the day when Arthur had died.

"Hush, Theo," she said to her, "don't cry, child."

But the feverish, excited sobs only came the faster, and more wildly.

"Why did I ever come?" Theo gasped. "It would have been better to have lived and died in Downport--far better, I can tell you now, Pam, now that it is all over. I loved him, and he loved me, too; he loved me always from the first, though we both tried so hard, so hard; yes, we did, Pamela, to help it. And now it is all ended, and I must never see him again. I must live and die, grow old--old, and never see him again."

There was no comfort for her. Her burst of grief and despair wore itself away into a strained quiet, and she lay at length in silence, Pamela at her side. But she was suffering fearfully in her intense girlish way.

She did not say much more to Pamela, but she had made up her mind, before many hours had pa.s.sed, to return to Paris. She even got up in the middle of the night, in her feverish hurry to make her slight preparations for the journey. She could go to Paris and wait till Lady Throckmorton came back, if she had not got back already, and then she could do as she was told as to the rest. She would either stay there or go to Downport with Pamela.

Fortune, however, interposed. A carriage made its appearance, in the morning, with a new arrival--an arrival no less than Lady Throckmorton herself, bearing down upon them in actual excitement.

An untoward accident had called her friend from home, and taken her to Caen, and there, at her earnest request, her ladys.h.i.+p had accompanied her. The blunder of an awkward servant had prevented her receiving the letters from St. Quentin, and it was only on her return to Paris that she had learned the truth.

Intense as was her bewilderment at her protege's indiscretion, she felt a touch of admiration, at the simple, faithful daring of the girl's course.

"It is sufficiently out of the way for Priscilla Gower to be here, and she is his promised wife; and Pamela is nearly thirty-two years old and looks forty; but you, Theodora--you to run away from Paris, with no one but a maid; to run away to nurse a man like Denis Oglethorpe. It actually takes away my breath. My dear, innocent little simpleton, what were you thinking about?"

It would be futile to attempt to describe her state of mind when she discovered that Denis had not learned of Theo's presence in the house.

But, being quick-sighted, and keen of sense, she began to comprehend at last, and it was Priscilla Gower who a.s.sisted her to a clearer state of mind.

Two days later, when, after a visit to his patient, the little doctor was preparing to take his departure, Priscilla Gower addressed him suddenly, as it seemed, without the slightest regard to her ladys.h.i.+p's presence.

"You think your patient improves rapidly," she said.

"Very rapidly," was the answer. "Men like him always do, mademoiselle."

She bent her head in acquiescence.

"I have a reason for asking this," she said. "Do you think he is strong enough to bear a shock?"

"Of what description, mademoiselle? Of grief, or--or of joy?"

"Of joy, monsieur," she answered, distinctly.

"Mademoiselle," said the doctor, "joy rarely kills."

She bent her erect head again.

She had not regarded the fact of her old enemy's presence ever so slightly while she spoke, but when the doctor was gone she addressed her.

"I have been thinking of returning to London at once, if possible," she said. "Miss Gower's ill-health renders any further absence a neglect. If I go, would it be possible for you to remain here, with Miss North?"

"Pamela?" suggested Lady Throckmorton.