melancholy way.
When the door was opened, he saw Leonard sitting listlessly on the side of his bed, resting his head on his hand, entirely unoccupied; but at the first perception who his visitor was, he sprang to his feet, and coming within the arms held out to him, rested his head on the kind shoulder.
‘My dear boy—my brave fellow,’ said Dr. May, ‘you got through yesterday nobly.’
There was none either of the calmness or the reserve of which Dr. May had been told, in the hot hands that were wringing his own, nor in the choking struggling voice that tried to make the words clear—’Thank you for what you said—And dear Aubrey—how is he?’
‘I came away at six, before he was awake,’ said the Doctor; ‘but he will not be the worse for it, never fear! I hope his evidence was less trying than you and he expected.’
Leonard half smiled. ‘I had forgotten that,’ he said, ‘it was so long ago! No, indeed—the dear fellow was—like a bright spot in that day—only—only it brought back all we were—all that is gone for ever.’
The tenderness of one whom he did not feel bound to uphold like his brother had produced the outbreak that could not fail to come to so warm, open, and sensitive a nature, and at such an age. He was bold and full of fortitude in the front of the ordeal, and solitude pent up his feelings, but the fatherly sympathy and perfect confidence drew forth expression, and a vent once opened, the rush of emotion and anguish long repressed was utterly overpowering. His youthful manhood struggled hard, but the strangled sobs only shook his frame the more convulsively, and the tears burnt like drops of fire, as they fell among the fingers that he spread over his face in the agony of weeping for his young vigorous life, his blasted hopes, the wretchedness he caused, the disgrace of his name.
‘Don’t, don’t fight against it,’ said Dr. May, affectionately drawing him to his seat on the bed, as, indeed, the violence of the paroxysm made him scarcely able to stand. ‘Let it have its way; you will be all the better for it. It ought to be so—it must.’
And in tears himself, the Doctor turned his back, and went as far away as the cell would permit, turning towards the books that lay on a narrow ledge that served for a table. ‘How long, O Lord, how long?’ were the words that caught his eye in the open Psalms; and, startled as if at unauthorized prying, he looked up at the dull screened and spiked window above his head, till he knew by the sounds that the worst of the uncontrollable passion had spent itself, and then he came back with the towel dipped in water, and cooled the flushed heated face as a sister might have done.
‘Oh—thank you—I am ashamed,’ gasped the still sobbing boy.
‘Ashamed! No; I like you the better for it,’ said the Doctor, earnestly. ‘There is no need that we should not grieve together in this great affliction, and say out all that is in our hearts.’
‘All!’ exclaimed Leonard. ‘No—no words can say that! Oh! was it for such as this that my poor mother made so much of me—and I got through the fever—and I hoped—and I strove—Why—why should I be cut off—for a disgrace and a misery to all! and again came the heartbroken sobs, though less violently.
‘Not to those who look within, and honour you, Leonard.’
‘Within! Why, how bad I have been, since
‘Ethel says that your so feeling comforts her the most; to know that you have not the terrible struggle of faith disturbed by injustice.’
‘If—I have not,’ said Leonard, ‘it is her doing. In those happy days when we read Marmion, and could not believe that God would not always show the right, she showed me how we only see bits and scraps of His Justice here, and it works round in the end! Nay, if I had not done that thing to Henry, I should not be here now! It is right! It is right!’ he exclaimed between the heaving sobs that still recurred. ‘I do try to keep before me what she said about Job—when it comes burning before me, why should that man be at large, and I here? or when I think how his serpent-eye fell under mine when I tried that one word about the receipt, that would save my life. Oh! that receipt!’
‘Better to be here than in his place, after all!’
‘I’d rather be a street-sweeper!’ bitterly began Leonard.—’Oh, Dr. May, do let me have that!’ he cried, suddenly changing his tone, and holding out his hand, as he perceived in the Doctor’s button-hole a dove-pink, presented at a cottage door by a grateful patient. For a space he was entirely occupied with gazing into its crimson depths, inhaling the fragrance, and caressingly spreading the cool damask petals against his hot cheeks and eyelids. ‘It is so long since I saw anything but walls!’ he said.
‘Three weeks,’ sadly replied the Doctor.
‘There was a gleam of sunshine when I got out of the van yesterday. I never knew before what sunshine was. I hope it will be a sunny day when I go out for the last time!’
‘My dear boy, I have good hopes of saving you. There’s not a creature in Stoneborough, or round it, that is not going to petition for you—and at your age—’
Leonard shook his head in dejection. ‘It has all gone against me,’ he said. ‘They all say there’s no chance. The chaplain says it is of no use unsettling my mind.’
‘The chaplain is an old—’ began Dr. May, catching himself up only just in time, and asking, ‘How do you get on with him!’
‘I can hear him read,’ said Leonard, with the look that had been thought sullen.
‘But you cannot talk to him?’
‘Not while he thinks me guilty.’ Then, at a sound of warm sympathy from his friend, he added, ‘I suppose it is his duty; but I wish he would keep away. I can’t stand his aiming at making me confess, and I don’t want to be disrespectful.’
‘I see, I see. It cannot be otherwise. But how would it be if Wilmot came to you?’
‘Would Mr. May?’ said Leonard, with a beseeching look.
‘Richard? He would with all his heart; but I think you would find more support and comfort in a man of Mr. Wilmot’s age and experience, and that Mr. Reeve would have more trust in him; but it shall be exactly as will be
