“If you’ve finished inventing it,” said Sylvie. “And let the Lesson be ‘to try again’!”
“No,” said Bruno with great decision. “The Lesson are ‘not to try again’!” “Once there were a lovely china man, what stood on the chimbley-piece. And he stood, and he stood. And one day he tumbleded off, and he didn’t hurt his self one bit. Only he would try again. And the next time he tumbleded off, he hurted his self welly much, and breaked off ever so much varnish.”
“But how did he come back on the chimneypiece after his first tumble?” said the Empress. (It was the first sensible question she had asked in all her life.)
“I put him there!” cried Bruno.
“Then I’m afraid you know something about his tumbling,” said the Professor. “Perhaps you pushed him?”
To which Bruno replied, very seriously, “Didn’t pushed him much—he were a lovely china man,” he added hastily, evidently very anxious to change the subject.
“Come, my children!” said the Elfin-King, who had just entered the room. “We must have a little chat together, before you go to bed.” And he was leading them away, but at the door they let go his hands, and ran back again to wish the Professor good night.
“Good night, Professor, good night!” And Bruno solemnly shook hands with the old man, who gazed at him with a loving smile, while Sylvie bent down to press her sweet lips upon his forehead.
“Good night, little ones!” said the Professor. “You may leave me now—to ruminate. I’m as jolly as the day is long, except when it’s necessary to ruminate on some very difficult subject. All of me,” he murmured sleepily as we left the room, “all of me, that isn’t Bonhommie, is Rumination!”
“What did he say, Bruno?” Sylvie enquired, as soon as we were safely out of hearing.
“I think he said ‘All of me that isn’t Bone-disease is Rheumatism.’ Whatever are that knocking, Sylvie?”
Sylvie stopped, and listened anxiously. It sounded like someone kicking at a door. “I hope it isn’t that Porcupine breaking loose!” she exclaimed.
“Let’s go on!” Bruno said hastily. “There’s nuffin to wait for, oo know!”
XXV
Life Out of Death
The sound of kicking, or knocking, grew louder every moment: and at last a door opened somewhere near us. “Did you say ‘come in!’ Sir?” my landlady asked timidly.
“Oh yes, come in!” I replied. “What’s the matter?”
“A note has just been left for you, Sir, by the baker’s boy. He said he was passing the Hall, and they asked him to come round and leave it here.”
The note contained five words only. “Please come at once. Muriel.”
A sudden terror seemed to chill my very heart. “The Earl is ill!” I said to myself. “Dying, perhaps!” And I hastily prepared to leave the house.
“No bad news, Sir, I hope?” my landlady said, as she saw me out. “The boy said as someone had arrived unexpectedly—.”
“I hope that is it!” I said. But my feelings were those of fear rather than of hope: though, on entering the house, I was somewhat reassured by finding luggage lying in the entrance, bearing the initials “E. L.”
“It’s only Eric Lindon after all!” I thought, half relieved and half annoyed. “Surely she need not have sent for me for that!”
Lady Muriel met me in the passage. Her eyes were gleaming—but it was the excitement of joy, rather than of grief. “I have a surprise for you!” she whispered.
“You mean that Eric Lindon is here?” I said, vainly trying to disguise the involuntary bitterness of my tone. “ ‘The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage-tables,’ ” I could not help repeating to myself. How cruelly I was misjudging her!
“No, no!” she eagerly replied. “At least—Eric is here. But—,” her voice quivered, “but there is another!”
No need for further question. I eagerly followed her in. There on the bed, he lay—pale and worn—the mere shadow of his old self—my old friend come back again from the dead!
“Arthur!” I exclaimed. I could not say another word.
“Yes, back again, old boy!” he murmured, smiling as I grasped his hand. “He,” indicating Eric, who stood near, “saved my life—He brought me back. Next to God, we must thank him, Muriel, my wife!”
Silently I shook hands with Eric and with the Earl: and with one consent we moved into the shaded side of the room, where we could talk without disturbing the invalid, who lay, silent and happy, holding his wife’s hand in his, and watching her with eyes that shone with the deep steady light of Love.
“He has been delirious till today,” Eric explained in a low voice: “and even today he has been wandering more than once. But the sight of her has been new life to him.” And then he went on to tell us, in would-be careless tones—I knew how he hated any display of feeling—how he had insisted on going back to the plague-stricken town, to bring away a man whom the doctor had abandoned as dying, but who might, he fancied, recover if brought to the hospital: how he had seen nothing in the wasted features to remind him of Arthur, and only recognised him when he visited the hospital a month after: how the doctor had forbidden him to announce the discovery, saying that any shock to the over taxed brain might kill him at once: how he had stayed on at the hospital, and nursed the sick man by night and day—all this with the studied indifference of one who is relating the commonplace acts of some chance acquaintance!
“And this was his rival!” I thought. “The man who had won from him the heart of the woman he loved!”
“The sun is setting,” said Lady Muriel, rising and leading the way to the open window. “Just look at the western sky! What lovely crimson tints! We shall have a glorious day tomorrow—” We had followed her across the room, and were standing in a little group, talking in low tones in the
