Audrey Craven Part 33

"I've come to ask you if you'll lend us some money. We're in debt----"

"In debt? Tt-t-t-tt--that's bad."

"I know it is. But we've had illness in the house, and expenses that we had to meet."

"Bless me! Is the boy ill?"

"No; it's not Ted----" But as she tried to explain who it was she broke down utterly, and burst into tears. Then uncle James took off his spectacles and wiped them. He waited till she could speak coherently; and when he had heard, he took his cheque-book out of his drawer, asking no questions and making no comments--for which Katherine respected him.

"How much will clear you, Katherine, and see you to the end of this business?"

"Twenty pounds would clear us; but----"

Uncle James looked very grave, and he wrote with a slow and terrible deliberation. But he smiled lavishly as he handed her a cheque for a hundred guineas. He had made it guineas.

"Remember, there's plenty more where that came from."

"I--I don't know how to thank you, uncle; we'll repay it gradually, with the interest."

"Interest, indeed; you'll do nothing of the kind. And we won't say anything about repayment either, this time. Only keep out of debt--keep out of debt, and don't make a fool of yourself, Katherine."

Katherine hesitated, and her voice trembled. "I--I'm not----"

"No, I don't say you are. I ask no questions; and, Katherine!" he looked up, but she was still standing beside him.

"Yes."

"Always come to me at once when you want money; and go to your aunt Kate when you want advice. She'll help you better than I can, my dear."

"Thank you--thank you very much indeed. You are too good to me." She stooped down and kissed him on the forehead, pressing his hand in hers, and was gone before he could see her tears. Perhaps they would have gratified him. But he was amply rewarded by her kiss and the compliment paid him by his own conscience, which told him that he had not forced his niece's confidence, as he might have done, nor yet chuckled, as he might have done, over her fallen pride. It was a remarkable fulfilment of prophecy, too.

When she got back to Devon Street, Vincent was asleep, with Mrs. Rogers watching over him, and Ted was waiting for her to come to lunch. He looked terribly depressed.

She showed him her cheque in silence.

"You never asked _him_, that stern old Puritan father?"

"Don't, Ted. Yes, I did. I thought it would kill me; but it didn't. Oh, Ted, we _have_ done him an injustice. He was kindness itself. I had to tell him about Vincent, too, and he never said a word--only gave me the cheque, and said we weren't to pay it back."

"H'm, that wasn't half bad of him, poor old thing." That admission meant a great deal from Ted.

"There's a letter there for you,--from Knowles, I think."

"What's he writing about?" She tore open the envelope. To her intense surprise she found a cheque for fifty guineas in it, and this note:--

"DEAR MISS HAVILAND,--Forgive my saying so, but when you want to sell your pictures, why don't you consult your friends instead of going to a thieving dealer? I found the Witch in the hands of such an one, and rescued her, for I won't say how little. As I could not possibly keep my ill-gotten gains on any other terms, please accept the enclosed, which with what you probably received will make up something like her real value. I need not tell you how delighted I am to possess so exquisite a specimen of your best work."

"Ted, what am I to do? Send it back again?"

"No, you little fool! Keep it, and never do _that_ again--for any one."

For any one? What was there that she would not do for Vincent? But Ted, having said that, looked more depressed than ever. He went to the fireplace, and leaned against the chimneypiece, shading his face with his hand.

"What is it, Ted?"

He made no answer. A terrible fear clutched at her heart, and he saw it in her eyes.

"He's all right now; he's sleeping. But----"

"But _what_? Tell me, Ted."

"Well, Crashawe was here this morning, and he says he isn't really better."

"But he _is_ better. He said so himself when he examined him yesterday."

"Yes, so he is, in a way. That is, you see, his lungs are all right.

It's his heart that's bad now. Crashawe says it must always have been more or less weak. And now----" He stopped short.

"Ted----" she implored.

"It may stop beating any minute."

She said nothing; she only took off her hat and cloak and put on her artist's overall,--it was her nurse's ap.r.o.n now. She must go to Vincent.

But a thought struck her before she reached the door.

"Does he know?"

"No; but I think he has some idea. He told Crashawe this morning not to interfere with the course of nature." Ted smiled a dreary smile at the recollection.

Katherine dismissed Mrs. Rogers and took up her post at Vincent's bedside. He was still sleeping, with his face turned towards hers as she sat. And as she looked at him she had hope. She was still young, and it was inconceivable to her that anything she loved so much should die. It was not, she pleaded, as if she had been happy, as if her love had any chance of a return, or had asked for anything better than to spend itself like this continually.

And as she sat on watching, it seemed to her that it was better as it was. Better that love should live by immortal things, by things intangible, invisible, by pity, by faith, by hope, breaking little by little every link with earth. She tried to make herself believe this pleasant theory, as she had tried many a day and many a night before, her heart having nothing else to warm it but the fire of its own sacrifice. It was better as it was.

And yet, she said again, in this last six weeks he had been hers in a way in which he could be no other woman's, not even Audrey's. He was hers by her days of service, her nights of watching, by all that had gone before, by her part in his new life. After all, that could never be undone. She was almost happy.

Ted took her place for an hour in the evening, but that was all the rest she gave herself. She meant to sit up with Vincent again to-night.

"Do you know, Kathy, your eyes are very pretty."

It had struck midnight, and Vincent had been awake and looking at her for the last two minutes. She smiled and blushed, and that made her whole face look pretty too. And as he looked into her eyes the blindness fell from his own, and he saw as a dying man sometimes does see.

"Come here, Sis." He stretched out his arm on the counterpane, and as she knelt beside him he put back her hair from her forehead.

"I wonder if I was wrong when I thought you couldn't love anybody?"

Then she knew that he was dying.

"Yes, very wrong indeed. For--I loved you then, Vincent." Her face was transfigured as she spoke. He had to be spared all sudden emotions, but she knew that _her_ confession would do him no harm. And indeed he took it quite calmly, without the least change of pulse.