The Testing of Diana Mallory Part 79

She saw a tall and slender woman, in black, bending toward her, with a willowy appealing grace, and eyes that beseeched. Diana Mallory stood before her. There was a pause. Then Lady Lucy rose slowly, laid down her spectacles, and held out her hand.

"It is very kind of you to come and see me," she said, mechanically.

"Will you sit down?"

Diana gazed at her, with the childish short-sighted pucker of the brow that Lady Lucy remembered well. Then she came closer, still holding Lady Lucy's hand.

"Sir James thought I might come," she said, breathlessly. "Isn't there--isn't there anything I might do? I wanted you to let me help you--like a secretary--won't you? Sir James thought you looked so tired--and this big place!--I am sure there are things I might do--and oh! it would make me so happy!"

Now she had her two hands clasping, fondling Lady Lucy's. Her eyes shone with tears, her mouth trembled.

"Oh, you must--you must!" she cried, suddenly; "don't let's remember anything but that we were friends--that you were so kind to me--you and Mr. Oliver--in the spring. I can't bear sitting there at Beechcote doing nothing--amusing myself--when you--and Mr. Oliver--"

She stopped, forcing back the tears that would drive their way up, studying in dismay the lined and dwindled face before her. Lady Lucy colored deeply. During the months which had elapsed since the broken engagement, she, even in her remote and hostile distance, had become fully aware of the singular prestige, the homage of a whole district's admiration and tenderness, which had gathered round Diana. She had resented the prestige and the homage, as telling against Oliver, unfairly. Yet as she looked at her visitor she felt the breath of their ascendency. Tender courage and self-control--the woman, where the girl had been--a nature steadied and enn.o.bled--these facts and victories spoke from Diana's face, her touch; they gave even something of maternity to her maiden youth.

"You come to a sad house," said Lady Lucy, holding her away a little.

"I know." The voice was quivering and sweet. "But he will recover--of course he'll recover!"

Lady Lucy shook her head.

"He seems to have no will to recover."

Then her limbs failed her. She sank into a chair by the fire, and there was Diana on a stool at her feet--timidly daring--dropping soft caresses on the hand she held, drawing out the tragic history of the preceding weeks, bringing, indeed, to this sad and failing mother what she had perforce done without till now--that electric sympathy of women with each other which is the natural relief and sustenance of the s.e.x.

Lady Lucy forgot her letters--forgot, in her mind-weariness, all the agitating facts about this girl that she had once so vividly remembered.

She had not the strength to battle and hold aloof. Who now could talk of marrying or giving in marriage? They met under a shadow of death; the situation between them reduced to bare elemental things.

"You'll stay and dine with me?" she said at last, feebly. "We'll send you home. The carriages have nothing to do. And"--she straightened herself--"you must see Oliver. He will know that you are here."

Diana said nothing. Lady Lucy rose and left the room. Diana leaned her head against the chair in which the older lady had been sitting, and covered her eyes. Her whole being was gathered into the moment of waiting.

Lady Lucy returned and beckoned. Once more Diana found herself hurrying along the ugly, interminable corridors with which she had been so familiar in the spring. The house had never seemed to her so forlorn.

They paused at an open door, guarded by a screen.

"Go in, please," said Lady Lucy, making room for her to pa.s.s.

Diana entered, shaken with inward fear. She pa.s.sed the screen, and there beyond it was an invalid couch--a man lying on it--and a hand held out to her.

That shrunken and wasted being the Oliver Marsham of two months before!

Her heart beat against her breast. Surely she was looking at the irreparable! Her high courage wavered and sank.

But Marsham did not perceive it. He saw, as in a cloud, the lovely oval of the face, the fringed eyes, the bending form.

"Will you sit down?" he said, hoa.r.s.ely.

She took a chair beside him, still holding his hand. It seemed as though she were struck dumb by what she saw. He inquired if she was at Beechcote.

"Yes." Her head drooped. "But I want Lady Lucy to let me come and stay here--a little."

"No one ought to stay here," he said, abruptly, two spots of feverish color appearing on his cheeks. "Sir James would advise you not. So do I."

She looked up softly.

"Your mother is so tired; she wants help. Won't you let me?"

Their eyes met. His hand trembled violently in hers.

"Why did you come?" he said, suddenly, breathing fast.

She found no words, only tears. She had relinquished his hand, but he stretched it out again and touched her bent head.

"There's no time left," he said, impatiently, "to--to fence in. Look here! I can't stand this pain many minutes more." He moved with a stifled groan. "They'll give me morphia--it's the only thing. But I want you to know. I was engaged to Alicia Drake--after--we broke it off. And I never loved her--not for a moment--and she knew it. Then, as soon as this happened she left us. There was poetic justice, wasn't it? Who can blame her? I don't. I want you to know--what sort of a fellow I am."

Diana had recovered her strength. She raised his hand, and leaned her face upon it.

"Let me stay," she repeated--"let me stay!"

"No!" he said, with emphasis. "You should only stay if I might tell you--I am a miserable creature--but I love you! And I may be a miserable creature--in Chide's opinion--everybody's. But I am not quite such a cur as that."

"Oliver!" She slipped to her knees. "Oliver! don't send me away!" All her being spoke in the words. Her dark head sank upon his shoulder, he felt her fresh cheek against his. With a cry he pressed her to him.

"I am dying--and--I--I am weak," he said, incoherently. He raised her hand as it lay across his breast and kissed it. Then he dropped it despairingly.

"The awful thing is that when the pain comes I care about nothing--not even you--_nothing_. And it's coming now. Go!--dearest. Good-night.

To-morrow!--Call my servant." And as she fled she heard a sound of anguish that was like a sword in her own heart.

His servant hurried to him; in the pa.s.sage outside Diana found Lady Lucy. They went back to the sitting-room together.

"The morphia will ease him," said Lady Lucy, with painful composure, putting her arm round the girl's shoulders. "Did he tell you he was dying?"

Diana nodded, unable to speak.

"It may be so. But the doctors don't agree." Then with a manner that recalled old days: "May I ask--I don't know that I have the right--what he said to you?"

She had withdrawn her arm, and the two confronted each other.

"Perhaps you won't allow it," said Diana, piteously. "He said I might only stay, if--if he might tell me--he loved me."

"Allow it?" said Lady Lucy, vaguely--"allow it?"

She fell into her chair, and Diana looked down upon her, hanging on the next word.

Lady Lucy made various movements as though to speak, which came to nothing.

"I have no one--but him," she said at last, with pathetic irrelevance.

"No one. Isabel--"