The Rosary

CHAPTER XV

THE CON­SUL­TA­TION

The doc­tor’s room was very qui­et. Jane leaned back in his dark green leather arm-​chair, her feet on a foot­stool, her hands grip­ping the arms on ei­ther side.

The doc­tor sat at his ta­ble, in the round piv­ot-​chair he al­ways used,–a chair which en­abled him to swing round sud­den­ly and face a pa­tient, or to turn away very qui­et­ly and bend over his ta­ble.

Just now he was not look­ing at Jane. He had been giv­ing her a de­tailed ac­count of his vis­it to Cas­tle Gle­neesh, which he had left on­ly on the pre­vi­ous evening. He had spent five hours with Garth. It seemed kind­est to tell her all; but he was look­ing straight be­fore him as he talked, be­cause he knew that at last the tears were run­ning unchecked down Jane’s cheeks, and he wished her to think he did not no­tice them.

“You un­der­stand, dear,” he was say­ing, “the ac­tu­al wounds are go­ing on well. Strange­ly enough, though the reti­na of each eye was pierced, and the sight is ir­recov­er­ably gone, there was very lit­tle dam­age done to sur­round­ing parts, and the brain is quite un­in­jured. The present dan­ger aris­es from the shock to the ner­vous sys­tem and from the ex­treme men­tal an­guish caused by the re­al­isa­tion of his loss. The phys­ical suf­fer­ing dur­ing the first days and nights must have been ter­ri­ble. Poor fel­low, he looks shat­tered by it. But his con­sti­tu­tion is ex­cel­lent, and his life has been so clean, healthy, and nor­mal, that he had ev­ery chance of mak­ing a good re­cov­ery, were it not that as the pain abat­ed and his blind­ness be­came more a thing to be dai­ly and hourly re­alised, his men­tal tor­ture was so ex­ces­sive. Sight has meant so in­finite­ly much to him,–beau­ty of form, beau­ty of colour. The artist in him was so all-​per­vad­ing. They tell me he said very lit­tle. He is a brave man and a strong one. But his tem­per­ature be­gan to vary alarm­ing­ly; he showed symp­toms of men­tal trou­ble, of which I need not give you tech­ni­cal de­tails; and a nerve spe­cial­ist seemed more nec­es­sary than an oculist. There­fore he is now in my hands.”

The doc­tor paused, straight­ened a few books ly­ing on the ta­ble, and drew a small bowl of vi­olets clos­er to him. He stud­ied these at­ten­tive­ly for a few mo­ments, then put them back where his wife had placed them and went on speak­ing.

“I am sat­is­fied on the whole. He need­ed a friend­ly voice to pen­etrate the dark­ness. He need­ed a hand to grasp his, in faith­ful com­pre­hen­sion. He did not want pity, and those who talked of his loss with­out un­der­stand­ing it, or be­ing able to mea­sure its im­men­si­ty, mad­dened him. He need­ed a fel­low-​man to come to him and say: ‘It is a fight–an aw­ful, des­per­ate fight. But by God’s grace you will win through to vic­to­ry. It would be far eas­ier to die; but to die would be to lose; you must live to win. It is ut­ter­ly be­yond all hu­man strength; but by God’s grace you will come through con­queror.’ All this I said to him, Jeanette, and a good deal more; and then a strange­ly beau­ti­ful thing hap­pened. I can tell you, and of course I could tell Flow­er, but to no one else on earth would I re­peat it. The dif­fi­cul­ty had been to ob­tain from him any re­sponse what­ev­er. He did not seem able to rouse suf­fi­cient­ly to no­tice any­thing go­ing on around him. But those words, ‘by God’s grace,’ ap­peared to take hold of him and find im­me­di­ate echo in his in­ner con­scious­ness. I heard him re­peat them once or twice, and then change them to ‘with the abun­dance of Thy grace.’ Then he turned his head slow­ly on the pil­low, and what one could see of his face seemed trans­formed. He said: ‘Now I re­mem­ber it, and the mu­sic is this’; and his hands moved on the bed­clothes, as if form­ing chords. Then, in a very low voice, but quite clear­ly, he re­peat­ed the sec­ond verse of the VENI, CRE­ATOR SPIR­ITUS. I knew it, be­cause I used to sing it as a cho­ris­ter in my fa­ther’s church at home. You re­mem­ber?”

“‘En­able with per­pet­ual light The dul­ness of our blind­ed sight. Anoint and cheer our soiled face With the abun­dance of Thy grace. Keep far our foes; give peace at home; Where Thou art Guide, no ill can come.’”

“It was the most touch­ing thing I ev­er heard.”

The doc­tor paused, for Jane had buried her face in her hands and was sob­bing con­vul­sive­ly. When her sobs grew less vi­olent, the doc­tor’s qui­et voice con­tin­ued: “You see, this gave me some­thing to go up­on. When a crash such as this hap­pens, all a man has left to hold on to is his re­li­gion. Ac­cord­ing as his spir­itu­al side has been de­vel­oped, will his phys­ical side stand the strain. Dal­main has more of the re­al thing than any one would think who on­ly knew him su­per­fi­cial­ly. Well, af­ter that we talked quite def­inite­ly, and I per­suad­ed him to agree to one or two im­por­tant ar­range­ments. You know, he has no re­la­tions of his own, to speak of; just a few cousins, who have nev­er been very friend­ly. He is quite alone up there; for, though he has hosts of friends, this is a time when friends would have to be very in­ti­mate to be ad­mit­ted; and though he seemed so boy­ish and easy to know, I be­gin to doubt whether any of us knew the re­al Garth–the soul of the man, deep down be­neath the sur­face.”

Jane lift­ed her head. “I did,” she said sim­ply.

“Ah,” said the doc­tor, “I see. Well, as I said, or­di­nary friends could not be ad­mit­ted. La­dy In­gle­by went, in her sweet im­pul­sive way, with­out let­ting them know she was com­ing; trav­elled all the way up from Shen­stone with no maid, and noth­ing but a hand­bag, and ar­rived at the door in a fly. Robert Macken­zie, the lo­cal med­ical man, who is an in­vet­er­ate misog­ynist, feared at first she was an un­sus­pect­ed wife of Dal’s. He seemed to think unan­nounced ladies ar­riv­ing in hired ve­hi­cles must nec­es­sar­ily turn out to be un­de­sir­able wives. I gath­er they had a some­what fun­ny scene. But La­dy In­gle­by soon got round old Rob­bie, and came near to charm­ing him–as whom does she not? But of course they did not dare let her in­to Dal’s room; so her min­istry of con­so­la­tion ap­pears to have con­sist­ed in let­ting Dal’s old house­keep­er weep on her beau­ti­ful shoul­der. It was some­what of a com­edy, hear­ing about it, when one hap­pened to know them all, bet­ter than they knew each oth­er. But to re­turn to prac­ti­cal de­tails. He has had a ful­ly trained male nurse and his own valet to wait on him. He ab­so­lute­ly re­fused one of our Lon­don hos­pi­tal nurs­es, who might have brought a lit­tle gen­tle com­fort and wom­an­ly sym­pa­thy to his sick-​room. He said he could not stand be­ing touched by a wom­an; so there it re­mained. A com­pe­tent man was found in­stead. But we can now dis­pense with him, and I have in­sist­ed up­on send­ing up a la­dy nurse of my own choos­ing; not so much to wait on him, or do any of a sick-​nurse’s or­di­nary du­ties– his own man can do these, and he seems a ca­pa­ble fel­low–but to sit with him, read to him, at­tend to his cor­re­spon­dence,–there are piles of un­opened let­ters he ought to hear,–in fact help him to take up life again in his blind­ness. It will need train­ing; it will re­quire tact; and this af­ter­noon I en­gaged ex­act­ly the right per­son. She is a gen­tle­wom­an by birth, has nursed for me be­fore, and is well up in the spe­cial knowl­edge of men­tal things which this case re­quires. Al­so she is a pret­ty, dain­ty lit­tle thing; just the kind of el­egant young wom­an poor Dal would have liked to have about him when he could see. He was such a fas­tid­ious chap about ap­pear­ances, and such a con­nois­seur of good looks. I have writ­ten a de­scrip­tive ac­count of her to Dr. Macken­zie, and he will pre­pare his pa­tient for her ar­rival. She is to go up the day af­ter to-​mor­row. We are lucky to get her, for she is quite first-​rate, and she has on­ly just fin­ished with a long con­sump­tive case, now on the mend and or­dered abroad. So you see, Jeanette, all is shap­ing well.–And now, my dear girl, you have a sto­ry of your own to tell me, and my whole at­ten­tion shall be at your dis­pos­al. But first of all I am go­ing to ring for tea, and you and I will have it qui­et­ly down here, if you will ex­cuse me for a few min­utes while I go up­stairs and speak to Flow­er.”

* * * * * * *

It seemed so nat­ural to Jane to be pour­ing out the doc­tor’s tea, and to watch him putting a lib­er­al al­lowance of salt on the thin bread- and-​but­ter, and then fold­ing it over with the care­ful ac­cu­ra­cy which had al­ways char­ac­terised his small­est ac­tion. In the es­sen­tials he had changed so lit­tle since the days when as a youth of twen­ty spend­ing his va­ca­tions at the rec­to­ry he used to give the lone­ly girl at the manor so much plea­sure by com­ing up to her school-​room tea; and when it proved pos­si­ble to dis­pose of her gov­erness’s chap­er­on­age and be by them­selves, what de­light­ful times they used to have, sit­ting on the hearth-​rug, roast­ing chest­nuts and dis­cussing the many sub­jects which were of mu­tu­al in­ter­est. Jane could still re­mem­ber the painful plea­sure of turn­ing hot chest­nuts on the bars with her fin­gers, and how she has­tened to do them her­self, lest he should be burned. She had al­ways se­cret­ly liked and ad­mired his hands, with the brown thin fin­gers, so del­icate in their touch and yet full of such gen­tle strength. She used to love watch­ing them while he sharp­ened her pen­cils or drew won­der­ful di­agrams in her ex­er­cise books; think­ing how in years to come, when he per­formed im­por­tant op­er­ations, hu­man lives would de­pend up­on their skill and dex­ter­ity. In those ear­ly years he had seemed so much old­er than she. And then came the time when she shot up rapid­ly in­to young wom­an­hood and their eyes were on a lev­el and their ages seemed the same. Then, as the years went on, Jane be­gan to feel old­er than he, and took to call­ing him “Boy” to em­pha­sise this fact. And then came- -Flow­er;–and com­pli­ca­tions. And Jane had to see his face grow thin and worn, and his hair whiten on the tem­ples. And she yearned over him, yet dared not of­fer sym­pa­thy. At last things came right for the doc­tor, and all the high­est good seemed his; in his pro­fes­sion; in his stand­ing among men; and, above all, in his heart life, which Flow­er had al­ways held be­tween her two sweet hands. And Jane re­joiced, but felt still more lone­ly now she had no com­pan­ion in lone­li­ness. And still their friend­ship held, with Flow­er ad­mit­ted as a third–a wist­ful, grate­ful third, anx­ious to learn from the wom­an whose friend­ship meant so much to her hus­band, how to suc­ceed where she had hith­er­to failed. And Jane’s faith­ful heart was gen­er­ous and loy­al to both, though in sight of their per­fect hap­pi­ness her lone­li­ness grew.

And now, in her own hour of need, it had to be Deryck on­ly; and the doc­tor knew this, and had ar­ranged ac­cord­ing­ly; for at last his chance had come, to re­pay the faith­ful de­vo­tion of a life­time. The con­ver­sa­tion of that af­ter­noon would be the supreme test of their friend­ship. And so, with a spe­cial­ist’s ap­pre­ci­ation of the men­tal ef­fect of the most triv­ial ex­ter­nal de­tails, the doc­tor had or­dered muffins, and a ket­tle on the fire, and had asked Jane to make the tea.

By the time the ket­tle boiled, they had re­mem­bered the chest­nuts, and were laugh­ing about poor old Fraulein’s ef­forts to keep them in or­der, and the strate­gies by which they used to evade her vig­ilance. And the years rolled back, and Jane felt her­self very much at home with the chum of her child­hood.

Nev­er­the­less, there was a mo­ment of ten­sion when the doc­tor drew back the tea-​ta­ble and they faced each oth­er in easy-​chairs on ei­ther side of the fire­place. Each no­ticed how char­ac­ter­is­tic was the at­ti­tude of the oth­er.

Jane sat for­ward, her feet firm­ly plant­ed on the hearth-​rug, her arms on her knees, and her hands clasped in front of her.

The doc­tor leaned back, one knee crossed over the oth­er, his el­bows on the arms of his chair, the tips of his fin­gers meet­ing, in ab­so­lute still­ness of body and in­tense con­cen­tra­tion of mind.

The si­lence be­tween them was like a deep, calm pool.

Jane took the first plunge.

“Deryck, I am go­ing to tell you ev­ery­thing. I am go­ing to speak of my heart, and mind, and feel­ings, ex­act­ly as if they were bones, and mus­cles, and lungs. I want you to com­bine the of­fices of doc­tor and con­fes­sor in one.”

The doc­tor had been con­tem­plat­ing his fin­ger-​tips. He now glanced swift­ly at Jane, and nod­ded; then turned his head and looked in­to the fire.

“Deryck, mine has been a some­what lone­ly ex­is­tence. I have nev­er been es­sen­tial to the life of an­oth­er, and no one has ev­er touched the re­al depths of mine. I have known they were there, but I have known they were un­sound­ed.”

The doc­tor opened his lips, as if to speak; then closed them in a firmer line than be­fore, and mere­ly nod­ded his head silent­ly.

“I had nev­er been loved with that love which makes one ab­so­lute­ly first to a per­son, nor had I ev­er so loved. I had–cared very much; but car­ing is not lov­ing.–Oh, Boy, I know that now!”

The doc­tor’s pro­file showed rather white against the dark-​green back­ground of his chair; but he smiled as he an­swered: “Quite true, dear. There is a dis­tinc­tion, and a dif­fer­ence.”

“I had heaps of friends, and amongst them a good many nice men, most­ly rather younger than my­self, who called me ‘Miss Cham­pi­on.’ to my face, and ‘good old Jane’ be­hind my back.”

The doc­tor smiled. He had as of­ten heard the ex­pres­sion, and could re­call the whole-​heart­ed af­fec­tion and ad­mi­ra­tion in the tones of those who used it.

“Men as a rule,” Con­tin­ued Jane, “get on bet­ter with me than do wom­en. Be­ing large and sol­id, and usu­al­ly call­ing a spade ‘a spade;’ and not ‘a gar­den im­ple­ment,’ wom­en con­sid­er me strong-​mind­ed, and are in­clined to be afraid of me. The boys know they can trust me; they make a con­fi­dante of me, look­ing up­on me as a sort of con­ve­nient el­der sis­ter who knows less about them than an el­der sis­ter would know, and is prob­ably more ready to be in­ter­est­ed in those things which they choose to tell. Among my men friends, Deryck, was Garth Dal­main.”

Jane paused, and the doc­tor wait­ed silent­ly for her to con­tin­ue.

“I was al­ways in­ter­est­ed in him, part­ly be­cause he was so orig­inal and vivid in his way of talk­ing, and part­ly be­cause”–a bright flush sud­den­ly crept up in­to the tanned cheeks-“well, though I did not re­alise it then, I sup­pose I found his ex­traor­di­nary beau­ty rather fas­ci­nat­ing. And then, our cir­cum­stances were so much alike,–both or­phans, and well off; re­spon­si­ble to no one for our ac­tions; with heaps of mu­tu­al friends, and con­stant­ly stay­ing at the same hous­es. We drift­ed in­to a pleas­ant in­ti­ma­cy, and of all my friends, he was the one who made me feel most like `a man and a broth­er.’ We dis­cussed wom­en by the dozen, all his spe­cial ad­mi­ra­tions in turn, and the ef­fect of their beau­ty up­on him, and I watched with in­ter­est to see who, at last, would fix his rov­ing fan­cy. But on one event­ful day all this was changed in half an hour. We were both stay­ing at Over­dene. There was a big house par­ty, and Aunt Georgina had ar­ranged a con­cert to which half the neigh­bour­hood was com­ing. Madame Vel­ma failed at the last minute. Aunt ‘Gi­na, in a great state of mind, was bor­row­ing re­marks from her macaw. You know how? She al­ways says she is mere­ly quot­ing `the dear bird.’ Some­thing had to be done. I of­fered to take Vel­ma’s place; and I sang.”

“Ah,” said the doc­tor.

“I sang The Rosary–the song Flow­er asked for the last time I was here. Do you re­mem­ber?”

The doc­tor nod­ded. “I re­mem­ber.”

“Af­ter that, all was changed be­tween Garth and me. I did not un­der­stand it at first. I knew the mu­sic had moved him deeply, beau­ty of sound hav­ing up­on him much the same ef­fect as beau­ty of colour; but I thought the ef­fect would pass in the night. But the days went on, and there was al­ways this strange sweet dif­fer­ence; not any­thing oth­ers would no­tice; but I sud­den­ly be­came con­scious that, for the first time in my whole life, I was es­sen­tial to some­body. I could not en­ter a room with­out re­al­is­ing that he was in­stant­ly aware of my pres­ence; I could not leave a room with­out know­ing that he would at once feel and re­gret my ab­sence. The one fact filled and com­plet­ed all things; the oth­er left a blank which could not be re­moved. I knew this, and yet–in­cred­ible though it may ap­pear–I did not re­alise it meant LOVE. I thought it was an ex­traor­di­nar­ily close bond of sym­pa­thy and mu­tu­al un­der­stand­ing, brought about prin­ci­pal­ly by our en­joy­ment of one an­oth­er’s mu­sic. We spent hours in the mu­sic-​room. I put it down to that; yet when he looked at me his eyes seemed to touch as well as see me, and it was a very ten­der and won­der­ful touch. And all the while I nev­er thought of love. I was so plain and al­most mid­dle-​aged; and he, such a beau­ti­ful, ra­di­ant youth. He was like a young sun-​god, and I felt warmed and viv­ified when he was near; and he was al­most al­ways near. Hon­est­ly, that was my side of the days suc­ceed­ing the con­cert. But HIS! He told me af­ter­wards, Deryck, it had been a sud­den rev­ela­tion to him when he heard me sing The Rosary, not of mu­sic on­ly, but of ME. He said he had nev­er thought of me oth­er­wise than as a good sort of chum; but then it was as if a veil were lift­ed, and he saw, and knew, and felt me as a wom­an. And–no doubt it will seem odd to you. Boy; it did to me;–but he said, that the wom­an he found then was his ide­al of wom­an­hood, and that from that hour he want­ed me for his own as he had nev­er want­ed any­thing be­fore.”

Jane paused, and looked in­to the glow­ing heart of the fire.

The doc­tor turned slow­ly and looked at Jane. He him­self had ex­pe­ri­enced the in­tense at­trac­tion of her wom­an­li­ness,–all the more over­pow­er­ing when it was re­alised, be­cause it did not ap­pear up­on the sur­face. He had sensed the strong moth­er-​ten­der­ness ly­ing dor­mant with­in her; had known that her arms would prove a haven of refuge, her bo­som a sooth­ing pil­low, her love a con­so­la­tion un­speak­able. In his own days of lone­li­ness and dis­ap­point­ment, the doc­tor had had to flee from this in Jane,–a pre­cious gift, so easy to have tak­en be­cause of her very ig­no­rance of it; but a gift to which he had no right. Thus the doc­tor could well un­der­stand the hold it would gain up­on a man who had dis­cov­ered it, and who was free to win it for his own.

But he on­ly said, “I do not think it odd, dear.”

Jane had for­got­ten the doc­tor. She came back prompt­ly from the glow­ing heart of the fire.

“I am glad you don’t,” she said. “I did.–well, we both left Over­dene on the same day. I came to you; he went to Shen­stone. It was a Tues­day. On the Fri­day I went down to Shen­stone, and we met again. Hav­ing been apart for a lit­tle while seemed to make this cu­ri­ous feel­ing of `to­geth­er­ness,’ deep­er and sweet­er than ev­er. In the Shen­stone house par­ty was that love­ly Amer­ican girl, Pauline Lis­ter. Garth was en­thu­si­as­tic about her beau­ty, and set on paint­ing her. Ev­ery­body made sure he was go­ing to pro­pose to her. Deryck, I thought so, too; in fact I had ad­vised him to do it. I felt so pleased and in­ter­est­ed over it, though all the while his eyes touched me when he looked at me, and I knew the day did not be­gin for him un­til we had met, and was over when we had said good-​night. And this ex­pe­ri­ence of be­ing first and most to him made ev­ery­thing so gold­en, and life so rich, and still I thought of it on­ly as an un­usu­al­ly de­light­ful friend­ship. But the evening of my ar­rival at Shen­stone he asked me to come out on to the ter­race af­ter din­ner, as he want­ed spe­cial­ly to talk to me. Deryck, I thought it was the usu­al pro­ceed­ing of mak­ing a con­fi­dante of me, and that I was to hear de­tails of his in­ten­tions re­gard­ing Miss Lis­ter. Think­ing that, I walked calm­ly out be­side him; sat down on the para­pet, in the bril­liant moon­light, and qui­et­ly wait­ed for him to be­gin. Then–oh, Deryck! It hap­pened.”

Jane put her el­bows on her knees, and buried her face in her clasped hands.

“I can­not tell you–de­tails. His love–it just poured over me like molten gold. It melt­ed the shell of my re­serve; it burst through the ice of my con­vic­tions; it swept me off my feet up­on a tor­rent of won­drous fire. I knew noth­ing in heav­en or earth but that this love was mine, and was for me. And then–oh, Deryck! I can’t ex­plain–I don’t know my­self how it hap­pened–but this whirl­wind of emo­tion came to rest up­on my heart. He knelt with his arms around me, and we held each oth­er in a sud­den great still­ness; and in that mo­ment I was all his, and he knew it. He might have stayed there hours if he had not moved or spo­ken; but present­ly he lift­ed up his face and looked at me. Then he said two words. I can’t re­peat them, Boy; but they brought me sud­den­ly to my sens­es, and made me re­alise what it all meant. Garth Dal­main want­ed me to mar­ry him.”

Jane paused, await­ing the doc­tor’s ex­pres­sion of sur­prise.

“What else could it have meant?” said Deryck Brand, very qui­et­ly. He passed his hand over his lips, know­ing they trem­bled a lit­tle. Jane’s con­fes­sions were giv­ing him a stiffer time than he had ex­pect­ed. “Well, dear, so you–?”

“I stood up,” said Jane; “for while he knelt there he was mas­ter of me, mind and body; and some in­stinct told me that if I were to be won to wife­hood, my rea­son must say `yes’ be­fore the rest of me. It is `spir­it, soul, and body’ in the Word, not `body, soul, and spir­it,’ as is so of­ten mis­quot­ed; and I be­lieve the in­spired se­quence to be the right one.”

The doc­tor made a quick move­ment of in­ter­est. “Good heav­ens, Jane!” he said. “You have got hold of a truth there, and you have ex­pressed it ex­act­ly as I have of­ten want­ed to ex­press it with­out be­ing able to find the right words. You have found them, Jeanette.”

She looked in­to his ea­ger eyes and smiled sad­ly. “Have I, Boy?” she said. “Well, they have cost me dear.–I put my lover from me and told him I must have twelve hours for calm re­flec­tion. He was so sure–so sure of me, so sure of him­self–that he agreed with­out a protest. At my re­quest he left me at once. The man­ner of his go­ing I can­not tell, even to you, Dicky. I promised to meet him at the vil­lage church next day and give him my an­swer. He was to try the new or­gan at eleven. We knew we should be alone. I came. He sent away the blow­er. He called me to him at the chan­cel step. The set­ting was so per­fect. The artist in him sang for joy, and thrilled with ex­pec­ta­tion. The glo­ry of ab­so­lute cer­tain­ty was in his eyes; though he had him­self well in hand. He kept from touch­ing me while he asked for my an­swer. Then–I re­fused him, point blank, giv­ing a rea­son he could not ques­tion. He turned from me and left the church, and I have not spo­ken to him from that day to this.”

A long si­lence in the doc­tor’s con­sult­ing-​room. One man­ly heart was en­ter­ing in­to the pain of an­oth­er, and yet striv­ing not to be in­dig­nant un­til he knew the whole truth.

Jane’s spir­it was strung up to the same pitch as in that fate­ful hour, and once more she thought her­self right.

At last the doc­tor spoke. He looked at her search­ing­ly now, and held her eyes.

“And why did you refuse him, Jane?” The kind voice was rather stern.

Jane put out her hands to him ap­peal­ing­ly. “Ah, Boy, I must make you un­der­stand! How could I do oth­er­wise, though, in­deed, it was putting away the high­est good life will ev­er hold for me? Deryck, you know Garth well enough to re­alise how de­pen­dent he is on beau­ty; he must be sur­round­ed by it, per­pet­ual­ly. Be­fore this un­ac­count­able need of each oth­er came to us he had talked to me quite freely on this point, say­ing of a plain per­son whose char­ac­ter and gifts he great­ly ad­mired, and whose face he grew to like in con­se­quence: ‘But of course it was not the sort of face one would have want­ed to live with, or to have day af­ter day op­po­site to one at ta­ble; but then one was not called to that sort of dis­ci­pline, which would be mar­tyr­dom to me.’ Oh, Deryck! Could I have tied Garth to my plain face? Could I have let my­self be­come a dai­ly, hourly dis­ci­pline to that ra­di­ant, beau­ty-​lov­ing na­ture? I know they say, ‘Love is blind.’ But that is be­fore Love has en­tered in­to his king­dom. Love de­sirous, sees on­ly that, in the one beloved, which has awak­ened the de­sire. But Love con­tent, re­gains full vi­sion, and, as time goes on, those pow­ers of vi­sion in­crease and be­come, by means of dai­ly, hourly, use,–mi­cro­scop­ic and tele­scop­ic. Wed­ded love is not blind. Bah! An out­sider stay­ing with mar­ried peo­ple is apt to hear what love sees, on both sides, and the delu­sion of love’s blind­ness is dis­pelled for­ev­er. I know Garth was blind, dur­ing all those gold­en days, to my ut­ter lack of beau­ty, be­cause he want­ed ME so much. But when he had had me, and had steeped him­self in all I have to give of soul and spir­it beau­ty; when the dai­ly rou­tine of life be­gan, which af­ter all has to be lived in com­plex­ions, and with fea­tures to the fore; when he sat down to break­fast and I saw him glance at me and then look away, when I was con­scious that I was sit­ting be­hind the cof­fee-​pot, look­ing my very plainest, and that in con­se­quence my boy’s dis­ci­pline had be­gun; could I have borne it? Should I not, in the mis­er­able sense of fail­ing him day by day, through no fault of my own, have grown plain­er and plain­er; un­til bit­ter­ness and dis­ap­point­ment, and per­haps jeal­ousy, all com­bined to make me pos­itive­ly ug­ly? I ask you, Deryck, could I have borne it?”

The doc­tor was look­ing at Jane with an ex­pres­sion of keen pro­fes­sion­al in­ter­est.

“How aw­ful­ly well I di­ag­nosed the case when I sent you abroad,” he re­marked med­ita­tive­ly. “Re­al­ly, with so lit­tle da­ta to go up­on–“

“Oh, Boy,” cried Jane, with a move­ment of im­pa­tience, “don’t speak to me as if I were a pa­tient. Treat me as a hu­man be­ing, at least, and tell me–as man to man–could I have tied Garth Dal­main to my plain face? For you know it is plain.”

The doc­tor laughed. He was glad to make Jane a lit­tle an­gry. “My dear girl,” he said, “were we speak­ing as man to man, I should have a few very strong things to say to you. As we are speak­ing as man to wom­an,–and as a man who has for a very long time re­spect­ed, hon­oured, and ad­mired a very dear and no­ble wom­an,–I will an­swer your ques­tion frankly. You are not beau­ti­ful, in the or­di­nary ac­cep­ta­tion of the word, and no one who re­al­ly loves you would an­swer oth­er­wise; be­cause no one who knows and loves you would dream of telling you a lie. We will even al­low, if you like, that you are plain, al­though I know half a dozen young men who, were they here, would want to kick me in­to the street for say­ing so, and I should have to pre­tend in self-​de­fence that their ears had played them false and I had said, ‘You are JANE,’ which is all they would con­sid­er mat­tered. So long as you are your­self, your friends will be well con­tent. At the same time, I may add, while this dear face is un­der dis­cus­sion, that I can look back to times when I have felt that I would glad­ly walk twen­ty miles for a sight of it; and in its ab­sence I have al­ways wished it present, and in its pres­ence I have nev­er wished it away.”

“Ah, but, Deryck, you did not have to have it al­ways op­po­site you at meals,” in­sist­ed Jane grave­ly.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly not. But I en­joyed the meals more on the hap­py oc­ca­sions when it was there.”

“And, Deryck–YOU DID NOT HAVE TO KISS IT.”

The doc­tor threw back his head and shout­ed with laugh­ter, so that Flow­er, pass­ing up the stairs, won­dered what turn the con­ver­sa­tion could be tak­ing.

But Jane was quite se­ri­ous; and saw in it no laugh­ing mat­ter.

“No, dear,” said the doc­tor when he had re­cov­ered; “to my in­fi­nite cred­it be it record­ed, that in all the years I have known it I have nev­er once kissed it.”

“Dicky, don’t tease! Oh, Boy, it is the most vi­tal ques­tion of my whole life; and if you do not now give me wise and thought­ful ad­vice, all this dif­fi­cult con­fes­sion will have been for noth­ing.”

The doc­tor be­came grave im­me­di­ate­ly. He leaned for­ward and took those clasped hands be­tween his.

“Dear,” he said, “for­give me if I seemed to take it light­ly. My most earnest thought is whol­ly at your dis­pos­al. And now let me ask you a few ques­tions. How did you ev­er suc­ceed in con­vinc­ing Dal­main that such a thing as this was an in­su­per­able ob­sta­cle to your mar­riage?”

“I did not give it as a rea­son.”

“What then did you give as your rea­son for re­fus­ing him?”

“I asked him how old he was.”

“Jane! Stand­ing there be­side him in the chan­cel, where he had come await­ing your an­swer?”

“Yes. It did seem aw­ful when I came to think it over af­ter­wards. But it worked.”

“I have no doubt it worked. What then?”

“He said he was twen­ty-​sev­en. I said I was thir­ty, and looked thir­ty-​five, and felt forty. I al­so said he might be twen­ty-​sev­en, but he looked nine­teen, and I was sure he of­ten felt nine.”

“Well?”

“Then I said that I could not mar­ry a mere boy.”

“And he ac­qui­esced?”

“He seemed stunned at first. Then he said of course I could not mar­ry him if I con­sid­ered him that. He said it was the first time he had giv­en a thought to him­self in the mat­ter. Then he said he bowed to my de­ci­sion, and he walked down the church and went out, and we have not met since.”

“Jane,” said the doc­tor, “I won­der he did not see through it. You are so un­used to ly­ing, that you can­not have lied, on the chan­cel step, to the man you loved, with much con­vic­tion.”

A dull red crept up be­neath Jane’s tan.

“Oh, Deryck, it was not en­tire­ly a lie. It was one of those dread­ful lies which are ‘part a truth,’ of which Ten­nyson says that they are ‘a hard­er mat­ter to fight.’”

“‘A lie which is all a lie May be met and fought with out­right; But a lie which is part a truth Is a hard­er mat­ter to fight,’”

quot­ed the doc­tor.

“Yes,” said Jane. “And he could not fight this, just be­cause it was part­ly true. He is younger than I by three years, and still more by tem­per­ament. It was part­ly for his de­light­ful youth­ful­ness that I feared my ma­tu­ri­ty and staid­ness. It was part a truth, but oh, Deryck, it was more a lie; and it was al­to­geth­er a lie to call him– the man whom I had felt com­plete mas­ter of me the evening be­fore–’a mere boy.’ Al­so he could not fight it be­cause it took him so ut­ter­ly by sur­prise. He had been all the time as com­plete­ly with­out self- con­scious­ness, as I had been mor­bid­ly full of it. His whole thought had been of me. Mine had been of him and–of my­self.”

“Jane,” said the doc­tor, “of all that you have suf­fered since that hour, you de­served ev­ery pang.”

Jane bent her head. “I know,” she said.

“You were false to your­self, and not true to your lover. You robbed and de­fraud­ed both. Can­not you now see your mis­take? To take it on the low­est ground, Dal­main, wor­ship­per of beau­ty as he was, had had a sur­feit of pret­ty faces. He was like the con­fec­tion­er’s boy who when first en­gaged is al­lowed to eat all the cakes and sweets he likes, and who eats so many in the first week, that ev­er af­ter he wants on­ly plain bread-​and-​but­ter. YOU were Dal’s bread-​and-​but­ter. I am sor­ry if you do not like the sim­ile.”

Jane smiled. “I do like the sim­ile,” she said.

“Ah, but you were far more than this, my dear girl. You were his ide­al of wom­an­hood. He be­lieved in your strength and ten­der­ness, your gra­cious­ness and truth. You shat­tered this ide­al; you failed this faith in you. His fan­ci­ful, artis­tic, eclec­tic na­ture with all its un­used pos­si­bil­ities of faith­ful and pas­sion­ate de­vo­tion, had found its haven in your love; and in twelve hours you turned it adrift. Jane–it was a crime. The mag­nif­icent strength of the fel­low is shown by the way he took it. His progress in his art was not ar­rest­ed. All his best work has been done since. He has made no bad mad mar­riage, in mock­ery of his own pain; and no grand love­less one, to spite you. He might have done both–I mean ei­ther. And when I re­alise that the poor fel­low I was with yes­ter­day–mak­ing such a brave fight in the dark, and turn­ing his head on the pil­low to say with a gleam of hope on his drawn face: `Where Thou art Guide, no ill can come’–had al­ready been put through all this by you–Jane, if you were a man, I’d horse­whip you!” said the doc­tor.

Jane squared her shoul­ders and lift­ed her head with more of her old spir­it than she had yet shown.

“You have lashed me well, Boy,” she said, “as on­ly words spo­ken in faith­ful in­dig­na­tion can lash. And I feel the bet­ter for the pain.– And now I think I ought to tell you that while I was on the top of the Great Pyra­mid I sud­den­ly saw the mat­ter from a dif­fer­ent stand­point. You re­mem­ber that view, with its sharp line of de­mar­ca­tion? On one side the riv­er, and ver­dure, veg­eta­tion, fruit­ful­ness, a ver­ita­ble ‘gar­den en­closed’; on the oth­er, vast space as far as the eye could reach; gold­en lib­er­ty, away to the hori­zon, but no sign of veg­eta­tion, no hope of cul­ti­va­tion, just bar­ren, arid, lone­li­ness. I felt this was an ex­act pic­ture of my life as I live it now. Garth’s love, flow­ing through it, as the riv­er, could have made it a ver­ita­ble ‘gar­den of the Lord.’ It would have meant less lib­er­ty, but it would al­so have meant no lone­li­ness. And, af­ter all, the lib­er­ty to live for self alone be­comes in time a weary bondage. Then I re­alised that I had con­demned him al­so to this hard desert life. I came down and took coun­sel of the old Sphinx. Those calm, wise eyes, look­ing on in­to fu­tu­ri­ty, seemed to say: ‘They on­ly live who love.’ That evening I re­solved to give up the Nile trip, re­turn home im­me­di­ate­ly, send for Garth, ad­mit all to him, ask­ing him to let us both be­gin again just where we were three years ago in the moon­light on the ter­race at Shen­stone. Ten min­utes af­ter I had formed this de­ci­sion, I heard of his ac­ci­dent.”

The doc­tor shad­ed his face with his hand. “The wheels of time,” he said in a low voice, “move for­ward–al­ways; back­ward, nev­er.”

“Oh, Deryck,” cried Jane, “some­times they do. You and Flow­er know that some­times they do.”

The doc­tor smiled sad­ly and very ten­der­ly. “I know,” he said, “that there is al­ways one ex­cep­tion which proves ev­ery rule.” Then he added quick­ly: “But, un­ques­tion­ably, it helps to mend mat­ters, so far as your own men­tal at­ti­tude is con­cerned, that be­fore you knew of Dal­main’s blind­ness you should have ad­mit­ted your­self wrong, and made up your mind to trust him.”

“I don’t know that I was al­to­geth­er clear about hav­ing been wrong,” said Jane, “but I was quite con­vinced that I couldn’t live any longer with­out him, and was there­fore pre­pared to risk it. And of course now, all doubt or need to ques­tion is swept away by my poor boy’s ac­ci­dent, which sim­pli­fies mat­ters, where that par­tic­ular point is con­cerned.”

The doc­tor looked at Jane with a sud­den rais­ing of his lev­el brows. “Sim­pli­fies mat­ters?” he said.

Then, as Jane, ap­par­ent­ly sat­is­fied with the ex­pres­sion, did not at­tempt to qual­ify it, he rose and stirred the fire; stand­ing over it for a few mo­ments in silent thought. When he sat down again, his voice was very qui­et, but there was an alert­ness about his ex­pres­sion which roused Jane. She felt that the cri­sis of their con­ver­sa­tion had been reached.

“And now, my dear Jeanette,” said the doc­tor, “sup­pose you tell me what you in­tend do­ing.”

“Do­ing?” said Jane. “Why, of course, I shall go straight to Garth. I on­ly want you to ad­vise me how best to let him know I am com­ing, and whether it is safe for him to have the emo­tion of my ar­rival. Al­so I don’t want to risk be­ing kept from him by doc­tors or nurs­es. My place is by his side. I ask no bet­ter thing of life than to be al­ways be­side him. But sick-​room at­ten­dants are apt to be pig- head­ed; and a fuss un­der these cir­cum­stances would be un­bear­able. A wire from you will make all clear.”

“I see,” said the doc­tor slow­ly. “Yes, a wire from me will un­doubt­ed­ly open a way for you to Garth Dal­main’s bed­side. And, ar­rived there, what then?”

A smile of in­ef­fa­ble ten­der­ness part­ed Jane’s lips. The doc­tor saw it, but turned away im­me­di­ate­ly. It was not for him, or for any man, to see that look. The eyes which should have seen it were sight­less ev­er­more.

“What then, Deryck? Love will know best what then. All bar­ri­ers will be swept away, and Garth and I will be to­geth­er.”

The doc­tor’s fin­ger-​tips met very ex­act­ly be­fore he spoke again; and when he did speak, his tone was very lev­el and very kind.

“Ah, Jane,” he said, “that is the wom­an’s point of view. It is cer­tain­ly the sim­plest, and per­haps the best. But at Garth’s bed­side you will be con­front­ed with the man’s point of view; and I should be fail­ing the trust you have placed in me did I not put that be­fore you now.–From the man’s point of view, your own mis­tak­en ac­tion three years ago has placed you now in an al­most im­pos­si­ble po­si­tion. If you go to Garth with the sim­ple of­fer of your love–the trea­sure he asked three years ago and failed to win–he will nat­ural­ly con­clude the love now giv­en is main­ly pity; and Garth Dal­main is not the man to be con­tent with pity, where he has thought to win love, and failed. Nor would he al­low any wom­an–least of all his crown of wom­an­hood–to tie her­self to his blind­ness un­less he were sure such bind­ing was her deep­est joy. And how could you ex­pect him to be­lieve this in face of the fact that, when he was all a wom­an’s heart could de­sire, you re­fused him and sent him from you?–If, on the oth­er hand, you ex­plain, as no doubt you in­tend to do, the rea­son of that re­fusal, he can but say one thing: ‘You could not trust me to be faith­ful when I had my sight. Blind, you come to me, when it is no longer in my pow­er to prove my fi­deli­ty. There is no virtue in ne­ces­si­ty. I can nev­er feel I pos­sess your trust, be­cause you come to me on­ly when ac­ci­dent has put it out of my pow­er ei­ther to do the thing you feared, or to prove my­self bet­ter than your doubts.’ My dear girl, that is how mat­ters stand from the man’s point of view; from his, I make no doubt, even more than from mine; for I recog­nise in Garth Dal­main a stronger man than my­self. Had it been I that day in the church, want­ing you as he did, I should have grov­elled at your feet and promised to grow up. Garth Dal­main had the iron strength to turn and go, with­out a protest, when the wom­an who had owned him mate the evening be­fore, re­fused him on the score of in­ad­equa­cy the next morn­ing. I fear there is no ques­tion of the view he would take of the sit­ua­tion as it now stands.”

Jane’s pale, star­tled face went to the doc­tor’s heart.

“But Deryck–he–loves–“

“Just be­cause he loves, my poor old girl, where you are con­cerned he could nev­er be con­tent with less than the best.”

“Oh, Boy, help me! Find a way! Tell me what to do!” De­spair was in Jane’s eyes.

The doc­tor con­sid­ered long, in si­lence. At last he said: “I see on­ly one way out. If Dal could some­how be brought to re­alise your point of view at that time as a pos­si­ble one, with­out know­ing it had ac­tu­al­ly been the cause of your re­fusal of him, and could have the chance to ex­press him­self clear­ly on the sub­ject–to me, for in­stance–in a way which might reach you with­out be­ing meant to reach you, it might put you in a bet­ter po­si­tion to­ward him. But it would be dif­fi­cult to man­age. If you could be in close con­tact with his mind, con­stant­ly near him un­seen–ah, poor chap, that is easy now–I mean un­known to him; if, for in­stance, you could be in the shoes of this nurse-​com­pan­ion per­son I am send­ing him, and get at his mind on the mat­ter; so that he could feel when you even­tu­al­ly made your con­fes­sion, he had al­ready jus­ti­fied him­self to you, and thus gone be­hind his blind­ness, as it were.”

Jane bound­ed in her chair. “Deryck, I have it! Oh, send ME as his nurse-​com­pan­ion! He would nev­er dream it was I. It is three years since he heard my voice, and he thinks me in Egypt. The so­ci­ety col­umn in all the pa­pers, a few weeks ago, men­tioned me as win­ter­ing in Egypt and Syr­ia and re­main­ing abroad un­til May. Not a soul knows I have come home. You are the best judge as to whether I have had train­ing and ex­pe­ri­ence; and all through the war our work was ful­ly as much men­tal and spir­itu­al, as sur­gi­cal. It was not up to much oth­er­wise. Oh, Dicky, you could safe­ly rec­om­mend me; and I still have my uni­forms stowed away in case of need. I could be ready in twen­ty-​four hours, and I would go as Sis­ter–any­thing, and eat in the kitchen if nec­es­sary.”

“But, my dear girl,” said the doc­tor qui­et­ly, “you could not go as Sis­ter Any­thing, un­for­tu­nate­ly. You could on­ly go as Nurse Rose­mary Gray; for I en­gaged her this morn­ing, and post­ed a full and ex­plic­it ac­count of her to Dr. Macken­zie, which he will read, to our pa­tient. I nev­er take a case from one nurse and give it to an­oth­er, ex­cept­ing for in­com­pe­ten­cy. And Nurse Rose­mary Gray could more eas­ily fly, than prove in­com­pe­tent. She will not be re­quired to eat in the kitchen. She is a gen­tle­wom­an, and will be treat­ed as such. I wish in­deed you could be in her shoes, though I doubt whether you could have car­ried it through–And now I have some­thing to tell you. Just be­fore I left him, Dal­main asked af­ter you. He sand­wiched you most care­ful­ly in be­tween the duchess and Flow­er; but he could not keep the blood out of his thin cheeks, and he gripped the bed­clothes in his ef­fort to keep his voice steady. He asked where you were. I said, I be­lieved, in Egypt. When you were com­ing home. I told him I had heard you in­tend­ed re­turn­ing to Jerusalem for East­er, and I sup­posed we might ex­pect you home at the end of April or ear­ly in May. He in­quired how you were. I replied that you were not a good cor­re­spon­dent, but I gath­ered from oc­ca­sion­al ca­bles and post-​cards that you were very fit and hav­ing a good time. I then vol­un­teered the state­ment that it was I who had sent you abroad be­cause you were go­ing all to pieces. He made a quick move­ment with his hand as if he would have struck me for us­ing the ex­pres­sion. Then he said: ‘Go­ing to pieces? SHE!’ in a tone of most ut­ter con­tempt for me and my opin­ions. Then he hasti­ly made minute in­quiries for Flow­er. He had al­ready asked about the duchess all the ques­tions he in­tend­ed ask­ing about you. When he had as­cer­tained that Flow­er was at home and well, and had sent him her af­fec­tion­ate sym­pa­thy, he begged me to glance through a pile of let­ters which were wait­ing un­til he felt able to have them read to him, and to tell him any of the hand­writ­ings known to me. All the world seemed to have sent him let­ters of sym­pa­thy, poor chap. I told him a dozen or so of the names I knew,–a roy­al hand­writ­ing among them. He asked whether there were any from abroad. There were two or three. I knew them all, and named them. He could not bear to hear any of them read; even the roy­al let­ter re­mained un­opened, though he asked to have it in his hand, and fin­gered the tiny crim­son crown. Then he asked. ‘Is there one from the duchess?’ There was. He wished to hear that one, so I opened and read it. It was very char­ac­ter­is­tic of her Grace; full of kind­ly sym­pa­thy, hearti­ly yet tact­ful­ly ex­pressed. Half-​way through she said: ‘Jane will be up­set. I shall write and tell her next time she sends me an ad­dress. At present I have no idea in which quar­ter of the globe my dear niece is to be found. Last time I heard of her she seemed in a fair way to­wards mar­ry­ing a lit­tle Jap and set­tling in Japan. Not a bad idea, my dear Dal, is it? Though, if Japan is at all like the pa­per screens, I don’t know where in that Liliputian coun­try they will find a house, or a hus­band, or a what-​do-​you-​call-’em thing they ride in, sol­id enough for our good Jane!’ With in­tu­itive tact of a very high or­der, I omit­ted this en­tire pas­sage about mar­ry­ing the Jap. When your aunt’s let­ter was fin­ished, he asked point blank whether there was one from you. I said No, but that it was un­like­ly the news had reached you, and I felt sure you would write when it did. So I hope you will, dear; and Nurse Rose­mary Gray will have in­struc­tions to read all his let­ters to him.”

“Oh, Deryck,” said Jane bro­ken­ly, “I can’t bear it! I must go to him!”

The tele­phone bell on the doc­tor’s ta­ble whirred sharply. He went over and took up the re­ceiv­er.

“Hul­lo! . . . Yes, it is Dr. Brand. . . . Who is speak­ing? . . . Oh, is it you, Ma­tron?”–Jane felt quite sor­ry the ma­tron could not see the doc­tor’s charm­ing smile in­to the tele­phone.–“Yes? What name did you say? . . . Un­doubt­ed­ly. This morn­ing; quite def­inite­ly. A most im­por­tant case. She is to call and see me to-​night . . . What? . . . Mis­take on reg­is­ter? Ah, I see . . . Gone where? . . . Where? . . . Spell it, please . . . Aus­tralia! Oh, quite out of reach! . . . Yes, I heard he was or­dered there . . . Nev­er mind, Ma­tron. You are in no way to blame . . . Thanks, I think not. I have some one in view . . . Yes. . . . Yes. . . . No doubt she might do . . . I will let you know if I should re­quire her . . . Good-​bye, Ma­tron, and thank you.”

The doc­tor hung up the re­ceiv­er. Then he turned to Jane; a slow, half-​doubt­ful smile gath­er­ing on his lips.

“Jeanette,” he said, “I do not be­lieve in chance. But I do be­lieve in a High­er Con­trol, which makes and un­makes our plans. You shall go.”