That was Vansittart’s last serious talk with Peggy. It was indeed Peggy’s last serious talk upon this planet, save for the murmured conversation in the dawn of an April day, when the London vicar, who was doing duty at St. George’s, came in before an early celebration to sit beside Peggy’s pillow and speak words of comfort and promise, words that told of a fairer world, whither Peggy’s footsteps were being guided by an impalpable Hand—a world where it might be she would see the faces of the loved and lost—those angel faces, missed here, but living forever there.
“Do you really believe it, sir?” Peggy asked eagerly, with her thin hand on the grave Churchman’s sleeve, her imploring looks perusing the worn, elderly face. “Shall I really see my mother again—see her and know her in heaven?”
“We know only what He has told us, my dear. ‘In My Father’s house there are many mansions’—and it may be that the homes we have lost—the firesides we remember dimly—the faces that looked upon our cradles—will be found—again—somewhere.”
“Ah, you are crying,” said Peggy. “You would like to believe—just as I would. That is the only heaven I care for—to be with mother—and for Eve and Jack to come to us by-and-by.”
This day, when the vicar came in the early morning, was thought to be Peggy’s last on earth, but she lingered, rallied, and slowly sank again, a gradual fading—painless towards the end; for the stages of suffering which she had borne so patiently were past, and the last hours were peaceful. She could keep her arms round Eve’s neck and listen to the soothing voice of sorrowing love, till even this effort was too much, and the weak arms relaxed their hold, and were gently laid upon the bed in that meek attitude which looked like the final repose. She could hear Eve still—speaking or reading to her in the soft, low voice that was like falling waters—but her mind was wandering in a pleasant dreamland, and she thought she was drifting on a streamlet that winds through the valley between Bexley Hill and Blackdown; through summer pastures where the meadowsweet grew tall and white beside the water, and where the voices of haymakers were calling to each other across the newly cut grass.
“I should like to have lived to see your child,” were Peggy’s last words, faltered brokenly into Eve’s ear as she knelt beside the bed.
There were long hours of silence; the mute faint struggles of the departing spirit; but that wish was the last of Peggy’s earthly speech.
Eve was brokenhearted. She never knew till the end came how she had clung to some frail thread of hope; in spite of the Destroyer’s palpable advance; in spite of the physician’s sad certainty; in spite of her husband’s gentle warnings, striving to prepare her for the end. The blow was terrible. Vansittart trembled for life and reason when he saw the intensity of her grief. Always highly strung, she was in a condition of health which made hysteria more to be dreaded. The brief delay between death and burial horrified her; yet to Vansittart that swift departure of the lifeless clay seemed an unutterable relief. For just a few hours the wasted form lay on the rose-strewn bed; and then in the early dimness, before the mists had floated up from the valley, before harbour and parish church stood out clear and bright in the face of the morning sun, came the bearers of the coffin, and at nine o’clock Vansittart went alone to see the loved youngest sister laid in the cemetery on the hill, in the secluded corner he himself had chosen—near the mother’s grave—as a spot where Eve might like to sit by-and-by, when sorrow should be less poignant, a nook from which she could see the shallow bay, and the cloud-capped islands jutting out into the sea, and the tall white lighthouse of Antibes, standing up above the crest of the hill, glorified in the afternoon sun, as if it were nearer heaven than earth.
In everything that Vansittart did at this time his thought was of Eve and her feelings. His grief for her sorrow was no less keen than the sorrow itself. He had been very fond of poor little Peggy, and had grown fonder of her as her weakness increased, and strengthened her claim upon his compassion. But now he saw with Eve’s eyes, thought with Eve’s mind, and every sigh and every tear of hers wrung his heart afresh.
Those earnest words of Peggy’s, spoken with the wasted arms about his neck, were very precious to him. It seemed as if they were in some wise his absolution for the wrong which he had done in keeping the secret of Harold Marchant’s death. Peggy had told him that she and her sister owed comfort and happiness to him—that he had changed the tenor of their lives from struggling penury to luxury and ease. He knew that over and above all these material advantages he had given Harold Marchant’s sister a profound and steadfast love—a love which would last as long as his life, and which was and would be the governing principle of his life—and he told himself that in keeping that dark secret he had done well.
Tranquillized by this assurance he put aside the old fear as something to be forgotten. But there was a nearer fear, a fear which had grown out of Peggy’s illness and death, which no casuistry could lessen or thrust aside. The fear of hereditary phthisis came upon him in the dead of night, and flung its dark shadow across his path by day. He had talked long with Dr. Bright after Peggy’s death, and the kind physician had calmly discussed the probabilities of evil; had held nothing back. Fear there
