The Rosary

CHAPTER XXV

THE DOC­TOR’S DI­AG­NO­SIS

“So you ex­pressed no opin­ion? ex­plained noth­ing? let him go on be­liev­ing that? Oh, Dicky! And you might have said so much!”

In the qui­et of the Scotch Sab­bath morn­ing, Jane and the doc­tor had climbed the wind­ing path from the end of the ter­race, which zigzagged up to a clear­ing amongst the pines. Two fall­en trees at a short dis­tance from each oth­er pro­vid­ed con­ve­nient seats in full sun­shine, fac­ing a glo­ri­ous view,–down in­to the glen, across the val­ley, and away to the pur­ple hills be­yond. The doc­tor had guid­ed Jane to the sun­nier of the two trunks, and seat­ed him­self be­side her. Then he had qui­et­ly re­count­ed prac­ti­cal­ly the whole of the con­ver­sa­tion of the pre­vi­ous evening.

“I ex­pressed no opin­ion. I ex­plained noth­ing. I let him con­tin­ue to be­lieve what he be­lieves; be­cause it is the on­ly way to keep you on the pin­na­cle where he has placed you. Let any oth­er rea­son for your con­duct than an al­most in­fan­tine ig­no­rance of men and things be sug­gest­ed and ac­cept­ed, and down you will come, my poor Jane, and great will be the fall. Mine shall not be the hand thus to hurl you head­long. As you say, I might have said so much, but I might al­so have lived to re­gret it.”

“I should fall in­to his arms,” said Jane reck­less­ly, “and I would soon­er be there than on a pin­na­cle.”

“Ex­cuse me, my good girl,” replied the doc­tor. “It is more like­ly you would fall in­to the first ex­press go­ing south. In fact, I am not cer­tain you would wait for an ex­press. I can al­most see the Hon­ourable Jane quit­ting yon­der lit­tle rail­way sta­tion, seat­ed in an emp­ty coal-​truck. No! Don’t start up and at­tempt to stride about among the pine nee­dles,” con­tin­ued the doc­tor, pulling Jane down be­side him again. “You will on­ly trip over a fir cone and go head­long in­to the val­ley. It is no use fore­stalling the in­evitable fall.”

“Oh, Dicky,” sighed Jane, putting her hand through his arm; and lean­ing her ban­daged eyes against the rough tweed of his shoul­der; “I don’t know what has come to you to-​day. You are not kind to me. You have har­rowed my poor soul by re­peat­ing all Garth said last night; and, thanks to that ter­ri­bly good mem­ory of yours, you have re­pro­duced the tones of his voice in ev­ery in­flec­tion. And then, in­stead of com­fort­ing me, you leave me en­tire­ly in the wrong, and com­plete­ly in the lurch.”

“In the wrong–yes,” said Deryck; “in the lurch–no. I did not say I would do noth­ing to-​day. I on­ly said I could do noth­ing last night. You can­not take up a wound­ed thing and turn it about and anal­yse it. When we bade each oth­er good-​night, I told him I would think the mat­ter over and give him my opin­ion to-​day. I will tell you what has hap­pened to me if you like. I have looked in­to the in­most re­cess­es of a very rare and beau­ti­ful na­ture, and I have seen what hav­oc a wom­an can work in the life of the man who loves her. I can as­sure you, last night was no pas­time. I woke this morn­ing feel­ing as if I had, metaphor­ical­ly, been beat­en black and blue.”

“Then what do you sup­pose _I_ feel?” in­quired Jane pa­thet­ical­ly.

“You still feel your­self in the right–part­ly,” replied Deryck. “And so long as you think you have a par­ti­cle of jus­ti­fi­ca­tion and cling to it, your case is hope­less. It will have to be: ‘I con­fess. Can you for­give?’”

“But I act­ed for the best,” said Jane. “I thought of him be­fore I thought of my­self. It would have been far eas­ier to have ac­cept­ed the hap­pi­ness of the mo­ment, and chanced the fu­ture.”

“That is not hon­est, Jeanette. You thought of your­self first. You dared not face the pos­si­bil­ity of the pain to you if his love cooled or his ad­mi­ra­tion waned. When one comes to think of it, I be­lieve ev­ery form of hu­man love–a moth­er’s on­ly ex­cept­ed–is pri­mar­ily self­ish. The best chance for Dal­main is that his help­less blind­ness may awak­en the moth­er love in you. Then self will go to the wall.”

“Ah me!” sighed Jane. “I am lost and weary and per­plexed in this be­wil­der­ing dark­ness. Noth­ing seems clear; noth­ing seems right. If I could see your kind eyes, Boy, your hard voice would hurt less.”

“Well, take off the ban­dage and look,” said the doc­tor.

“I will not!” cried Jane fu­ri­ous­ly. “Have I gone through all this to fail at the last?”

“My dear girl, this self-​im­posed dark­ness is get­ting on your nerves. Take care it does not do more harm than good. Strong reme­dies–“

“Hush!” whis­pered Jane. “I hear foot­steps.”

“You can al­ways hear foot­steps in a wood if you hear­ken for them,” said the doc­tor; but he spoke low, and then sat qui­et, lis­ten­ing.

“I hear Garth’s step,” whis­pered Jane. “Oh, Dicky, go to the edge and look over. You can see the wind­ings of the path be­low.”

The doc­tor stepped for­ward qui­et­ly and looked down up­on the way they had as­cend­ed. Then he came back to Jane.

“Yes,” he said. “For­tune favours us. Dal­main is com­ing up the path with Simp­son. He will be here in two min­utes.”

“For­tune favours us? My dear Dicky! Of all mis-​chances!” Jane’s hand flew to her ban­dage, but the doc­tor stayed her just in time.

“Not at all,” he said. “And do not fail at the last in your ex­per­iment. I ought to be able to keep you two blind peo­ple apart. Trust me, and keep dark–I mean, sit still. And can you not un­der­stand why I said for­tune favours us? Dal­main is com­ing for my opin­ion on the case. You shall hear it to­geth­er. It will be a sav­ing of time for me, and most en­light­en­ing for you to mark how he takes it. Now keep qui­et. I promise he shall not sit on your lap. But if you make a sound, I shall have to say you are a bun­ny or a squir­rel, and throw fir cones at you.”

The doc­tor rose and saun­tered round the bend of the path.

Jane sat on in dark­ness.

“Hul­lo, Dal­main,” she heard Deryck say. “Found your way up here? An ide­al spot. Shall we dis­pense with Simp­son? Take my arm.”

“Yes,” replied Garth. “I was told you were up here, Brand, and fol­lowed you.”

They came round the bend to­geth­er, and out in­to the clear­ing.

“Are you alone?” asked Garth stand­ing still. “I thought I heard voic­es.”

“You did,” replied the doc­tor. “I was talk­ing to a young wom­an.”

“What sort of young wom­an?” asked Garth.

“A bux­om young per­son,” replied the doc­tor, “with a de­cid­ed­ly touchy tem­per.”

“Do you know her name?”

“Jane,” said the doc­tor reck­less­ly.

“Not ‘Jane,’” said Garth quick­ly,–“Jean. I know her,–my gar­den­er’s el­dest daugh­ter. Rather weighed down by fam­ily cares, poor girl.”

“I saw she was weighed down,” said the doc­tor. “I did not know it was by fam­ily cares. Let us sit on this trunk. Can you call up the view to mind?”

“Yes,” replied Garth; “I know it so well. But it ter­ri­fies me to find how my men­tal pic­tures are fad­ing; all but one.”

“And that is–?” asked the doc­tor.

“The face of the One Wom­an,” said Garth in his blind­ness.

“Ah, my dear fel­low,” said the doc­tor, “I have not for­got­ten my promise to give you this morn­ing my opin­ion on your sto­ry. I have been think­ing it over care­ful­ly, and have ar­rived at sev­er­al con­clu­sions. Shall we sit on this fall­en tree? Won’t you smoke? One can talk bet­ter un­der the in­flu­ence of the fra­grant weed.”

Garth took out his cigarette case, chose a cigarette, light­ed it with care, and flung the flam­ing match straight on to Jane’s clasped hands.

Be­fore the doc­tor could spring up, Jane had smil­ing­ly flicked it off.

“What nerve!” thought Deryck, with ad­mi­ra­tion. “Nine­ty-​nine wom­en out of a hun­dred would have said ‘Ah!’ and giv­en away the show. Re­al­ly, she de­serves to win.”

Sud­den­ly Garth stood up. “I think we shall do bet­ter on the oth­er log,” he said un­ex­pect­ed­ly. “It is al­ways in fuller sun­shine.” And he moved to­wards Jane.

With a bound the doc­tor sprang in front of him, seized Jane with one strong hand and drew her be­hind him; then guid­ed Garth to the very spot where she had been sit­ting.

“How ac­cu­rate­ly you judge dis­tance,” he re­marked, back­ing with Jane to­wards the fur­ther trunk. Then he seat­ed him­self be­side Garth in the sun­shine. “Now for our talk,” said the doc­tor, and he said it rather breath­less­ly.

“Are you sure we are alone?” asked Garth. “I seem con­scious of an­oth­er pres­ence.”

“My dear fel­low,” said the doc­tor, “is one ev­er alone in a wood? Count­less lit­tle pres­ences sur­round us. Bright eyes peep down from the branch­es; fur­ry tails flick in and out of holes; things un­seen move in the dead leaves at our feet. If you seek soli­tude, shun the woods.”

“Yes,” replied Garth, “I know, and I love lis­ten­ing to them. I meant a hu­man pres­ence. Brand, I am of­ten so tried by the sense of an un­seen hu­man pres­ence near me. Do you know, I could have sworn the oth­er day that she–the One Wom­an–came silent­ly, looked up­on me in my blind­ness, pitied me, as her great ten­der heart would do, and silent­ly de­part­ed.”

“When was that?” asked the doc­tor.

“A few days ago. Dr. Rob had been telling us how he came across her in–Ah! I must not say where. Then he and Miss Gray left me alone, and in the lone­ly dark­ness and si­lence I felt her eyes up­on me.”

“Dear boy,” said the doc­tor, “you must not en­cour­age this dread of un­seen pres­ences. Re­mem­ber, those who care for us very tru­ly and deeply can of­ten make us con­scious of their men­tal near­ness, even when far away, es­pe­cial­ly if they know we are in trou­ble and need­ing them. You must not be sur­prised if you are of­ten con­scious of the near­ness of the One Wom­an, for I be­lieve–and I do not say it light­ly, Dal­main–I be­lieve her whole heart and love and life are yours.”

“Good Lord!” ex­claimed Garth, and spring­ing up, strode for­ward aim­less­ly.

The doc­tor caught him by the arm. In an­oth­er mo­ment he would have fall­en over Jane’s feet.

“Sit down, man,” said the doc­tor, “and lis­ten to me. You gain noth­ing by dash­ing about in the dark in that way. I am go­ing to prove my words. But you must give me your calm at­ten­tion. Now lis­ten. We are con­front­ed in this case by a psy­cho­log­ical prob­lem, and one which very like­ly has not oc­curred to you. I want you for a mo­ment to pic­ture the One Man and the One Wom­an fac­ing each oth­er in the Gar­den of Eden, or in the moon­light–wher­ev­er it was–if you like bet­ter. Now will you re­alise this? The ef­fect up­on a man of falling in love is to cre­ate in him a com­plete un­con­scious­ness of self. On the oth­er hand, the ef­fect up­on a wom­an of be­ing loved and sought, and of re­spond­ing to that love and seek­ing, is an ac­ces­sion of in­tense self-​con­scious­ness. He, long­ing to win and take, thinks of her on­ly. She, called up­on to yield and give, has her mind turned at once up­on her­self. Can she meet his need? Is she all he thinks her? Will she be able to con­tent him com­plete­ly, not on­ly now but in the long vista of years to come? The more nat­ural and un­con­scious of self she had been be­fore, the hard­er she would be hit by this sud­den, over­whelm­ing at­tack of self-​con­scious­ness.”

The doc­tor glanced at Jane on the log six yards away. She had lift­ed her clasped hands and was nod­ding to­wards him, her face ra­di­ant with re­lief and thank­ful­ness.

He felt he was on the right tack. But the blind face be­side him cloud­ed heav­ily, and the cloud deep­ened as he pro­ceed­ed.

“You see, my dear chap, I gath­ered from your­self she was not of the type of fem­inine love­li­ness you were known to ad­mire. Might she not have feared that her ap­pear­ance would, af­ter a while, have failed to con­tent you?”

“No,” replied Garth with ab­so­lute­ly fi­nal­ity of tone. “Such a sug­ges­tion is un­wor­thy. Be­sides, had the idea by any pos­si­bil­ity en­tered her mind, she would on­ly have had to ques­tion me on the point. My de­ci­sion would have been fi­nal; my an­swer would have ful­ly re­as­sured her.”

“Love is blind,” quot­ed the doc­tor qui­et­ly.

“They lie who say so,” cried Garth vi­olent­ly. “Love is so far-​see­ing that it sees be­neath the sur­face and de­lights in beau­ties un­seen by oth­er eyes.”

“Then you do not ac­cept my the­ory?” asked the doc­tor.

“Not as an ex­pla­na­tion of my own trou­ble,” an­swered Garth; “be­cause I know the great­ness of her na­ture would have lift­ed her far above such a con­sid­er­ation. But I do in­deed agree as to the com­plete obliv­ion to self of the man in love. How else could we ev­er ven­ture to sug­gest to a wom­an that she should mar­ry us? Ah, Brand, when one thinks of it, the in­tru­sion in­to her pri­va­cy; the ask­ing the right to touch, even her hand, at will; it could not be done un­less the love of her and the thought of her had swept away all thoughts of self. Look­ing back up­on that time I re­mem­ber how com­plete­ly it was so with me. And when she said to me in the church: ‘How old are you?’–ah, I did not tell you that last night–the re­vul­sion of feel­ing brought about by be­ing turned at that mo­ment in up­on my­self was so great, that my joy seemed to shriv­el and die in hor­ror at my own un­wor­thi­ness.”

Si­lence in the wood. The doc­tor felt he was play­ing a los­ing game. He dared not look at the silent fig­ure op­po­site. At last he spoke.

“Dal­main, there are two pos­si­ble so­lu­tions to your prob­lem. Do you think it was a case of Eve hold­ing back in vir­ginal shy­ness, ex­pect­ing Adam to pur­sue?”

“Ah, no,” said Garth em­phat­ical­ly. “We had gone far be­yond all that. Nor could you sug­gest it, did you know her. She is too hon­est, too ab­so­lute­ly straight and true, to have de­ceived me. Be­sides, had it been so, in all these lone­ly years, when she found I made no sign, she would have sent me word of what she re­al­ly meant.”

“Should you have gone to her then?” asked the doc­tor.

“Yes,” said Garth slow­ly. “I should have gone and I should have for­giv­en–be­cause she is my own. But it could nev­er have been the same. It would have been un­wor­thy of us both.”

“Well,” con­tin­ued the doc­tor, “the oth­er so­lu­tion re­mains. You have ad­mit­ted that the One Wom­an came some­what short of the con­ven­tion­al stan­dard of beau­ty. Your love of love­li­ness was so well known. Do you not think, dur­ing the long hours of that night,–re­mem­ber how new it was to her to be so wor­shipped and want­ed,–do you not think her courage failed her? She feared she might come short of what even­tu­al­ly you would need in the face and fig­ure al­ways op­po­site you at your ta­ble; and, de­spite her own great love and yours, she thought it wis­est to avoid fu­ture dis­il­lu­sion by re­ject­ing present joy. Her very love for you would have armed her to this de­ci­sion.”

The silent fig­ure op­po­site nod­ded, and wait­ed with clasped hands. Deryck was plead­ing her cause bet­ter than she could have plead­ed it her­self.

Si­lence in the woods. All na­ture seemed to hush and lis­ten for the an­swer.

Then:–“No,” said Garth’s young voice un­hesi­tat­ing­ly. “In that case she would have told me her fear, and I should have re­as­sured her im­me­di­ate­ly. Your sug­ges­tion is un­wor­thy of my beloved.”

The wind sighed in the trees. A cloud passed be­fore the sun. The two who sat in dark­ness, shiv­ered and were silent.

Then the doc­tor spoke. “My dear boy,” he said, and a deep ten­der­ness was in his voice: “I must main­tain my un­al­ter­able be­lief that to the One Wom­an you are still the One Man. In your blind­ness her right­ful place is by your side. Per­haps even now she is yearn­ing to be here. Will you tell me her name, and give me leave to seek her out, hear from her­self her ver­sion of the sto­ry; and, if it be as I think, bring her to you, to prove, in your af­flic­tion, her love and ten­der­ness?”

“Nev­er!” said Garth. “Nev­er, while life shall last! Can you not see that if when I had sight, and fame, and all heart could de­sire, I could not win her love, what she might feel for me now, in my help­less blind­ness, could be but pity? And pity from her I could nev­er ac­cept. If I was ‘a mere boy’ three years ago, I am ‘a mere blind man’ now, an ob­ject for kind com­mis­er­ation. If in­deed you are right, and she mis­trust­ed my love and my fi­deli­ty, it is now out of my pow­er for­ev­er to prove her wrong and to prove my­self faith­ful. But I will not al­low the vi­sion of my beloved to be dimmed by these sug­ges­tions. For her com­ple­tion, she need­ed so much more than I could give. She re­fused me be­cause I was not ful­ly wor­thy. I pre­fer it should be so. Let us leave it at that.”

“It leaves you to lone­li­ness,” said the doc­tor sad­ly.

“I pre­fer lone­li­ness,” replied Garth’s young voice, “to dis­il­lu­sion. Hark! I hear the first gong, Brand. Margery will be grieved if we keep her Sun­day dish­es wait­ing.”

He stood up and turned his sight­less face to­wards the view.

“Ah, how well I know it,” he said. “When Miss Gray and I sit up here, she tells me all she sees, and I tell her what she does not see, but what I know is there. She is keen on art, and on most of the things I care about. I must ask for an arm, Brand, though the path is wide and good. I can­not risk a tum­ble. I have come one or two aw­ful crop­pers, and I promised Miss Gray–The path is wide. Yes, we can walk two abreast, three abreast if nec­es­sary. It is well we had this good path made. It used to be a steep scram­ble.”

“Three abreast,” said the doc­tor. “So we could–if nec­es­sary.” He stepped back and raised Jane from her seat, draw­ing her cold hand through his left arm. “Now, my dear fel­low, my right arm will suit you best; then you can keep your stick in your right hand.”

And thus they start­ed down through the wood, on that love­ly Sab­bath morn of ear­ly sum­mer; and the doc­tor walked erect be­tween those two sev­ered hearts, unit­ing, and yet di­vid­ing them.

Just once Garth paused and lis­tened. “I seem to hear an­oth­er foot­step,” he said, “be­sides yours and mine.”

“The wood is full of foot­steps,” said the doc­tor, “just as the heart is full of echoes. If you stand still and lis­ten you can hear what you will in ei­ther.”

“Then let us not stand still,” said Garth, “for in old days, if I was late for lunch, Margery used to spank me.”