“There, there, dearest,” he said in a low whisper, “it’s only me, only me.” He stroked the narrow hand and gazed into the shadowiness. Her fingers lay quiet and passive in his, with that strange sense of immateriality that sleep brings to the body.
“You, you!” she answered with a deep sigh. “Oh, dearest, how you frightened me. What is wrong? why have you come? Are you worse, dearest, dearest?”
He kissed her hand. “No, Alice, not worse. I couldn’t sleep, that was all.”
“Oh, and I came so utterly miserable to bed because you would not see me. And Mother would tell me only so very little. I didn’t even know you had been ill.” She pressed his hand between her own. “But this, you know, is very, very naughty—you will catch cold, you bad thing. What would Mother say?”
“I think we mustn’t tell her, dear. I couldn’t help it; I felt much I wanted to see you. I have been rather miserable.”
“Why?” she said, stroking his hand from wrist to fingertips with one soft finger. “You mustn’t be miserable. You and me have never done such a thing before; have we? Was it that wretched old Flu?”
It was too dark in the little fragrant room even to see her face so close to his own. And yet he feared. “Dr. Simon,” she went on softly, “said it was. But isn’t your voice a little hoarse, and it sounds so melancholy in the dark. And oh”—she squeezed his wrist—“you have grown so thin! You do frighten me. Whatever should I do if you were really ill? And it was so odd, dear. When first I woke I seemed to be still straining my eyes in a dream, at such a curious, haunting face—not very nice. I am glad, I am glad you were here.”
“What was the dream-face like?” came the muttered question.
“Dark and sharp, and rather dwelling eyes; you know those long faces one sees in dreams: like a hawk, like a conjuror’s.”
Like a conjuror’s!—it was the first unguarded and ungarbled criticism. “Perhaps, dear, if you find my voice different, and my hand shrunk up, you will find my face changed, too—like a conjuror’s. … What then?”
She laughed gaily and tenderly. “You silly silly; I should love you more than ever. Your hands are icy cold. I can’t warm them nohow.”
Lawford held tight his daughter’s hand. “You do love me, Alice? You would not turn against me, whatever happened? Ah, you shall see, you shall see.” A sudden burning hope sprang up in him. Surely when all was well again, these last few hours would not have been spent in vain. Like the shadow of death they had been, against whose darkness the green familiar earth seems beautiful as the plains of paradise. Had he but realized before how much he loved her—what years of life had been wasted in leaving it all unsaid! He came back from his reverie to find his hand wet with her tears. He stroked her hair, and touched gently her eyelids without speaking.
“You will let me come in tomorrow?” she pleaded; “you won’t keep me out?”
“Ah, but, dear, you must remember your mother. She gets so anxious, and every word the doctor says is law. How would you like me to come again like this, perhaps?—like Santa Claus?”
“You know how I love having you,” she said, and stopped. “But—but …” He leaned closer. “Yes, yes, come,” she said, clutching his hand and hiding her eyes; “it is only my dream—that horrible, dwelling face in the dream; it frightened me so.”
Lawford rose very slowly from his knees. He could feel in the dark his brows drawn down; there came a low, sullen beating on his ear; he saw his face as it were in dim outline against the dark. Rage and rebellion surged up in him; even his love could be turned to bitterness. Well, two could play at any game! Alice sprang up in bed and caught his sleeve. “Dearest, dearest, you must not be angry with me now!”
He flung himself down beside the bed. Anger, resentment died away. “You are all I have left,” he said.
He stole back, as he had come, in the clear dawn to his bedroom.
It was not five yet. He put a few more coals on his fire and blew out the night-light, and lay down. But it was impossible to rest, to remain inactive. He would go down and search for that first volume of Quain. Hallucination, Influenza, Insanity—why, Sheila must have purposely mislaid it. A rather formidable figure he looked, descending the stairs in the grey dusk of daybreak. The breakfast-room was at the back of the house. He tilted the blind, and a faint light flowed in from the changing colours of the sky. He opened the glass door of the little bookcase to the right of the window, and ran eye and finger over the few rows of books. But as he stood there with his back to the room, just as the shadow of a bird’s wing floats across the moonlight of a pool, he became suddenly conscious that something, somebody had passed across the doorway, and in passing had looked in on him.
He stood motionless, listening; but no sound broke the morning slumbrousness, except the faraway warbling of a thrush in the first light.
