Theo looked out of the window, straight over her folded arms. The answer had not been given unkindly, but she could not look at Priscilla
and remorsefully anathematizing himself.
They were both together in the room, one evening, when he was raving thus, when he suddenly paused for an instant and began to count slowly upon his fingers.
"January, February, March, April, May, June, July. My pretty Theo, what a mistake it was only seven months, and then to have lost you. Good God, my darling!" and his voice became a low, agonized cry. "Good God, my darling! and I cannot give you up!"
Theo glanced up at Priscilla Gower, mute with misery for a moment. The erect, black-robed figure stood between herself and the fire, motionless, but the fixed face was so white that it forced a low cry from her. She could not bear it a second longer. She slipped upon her knees on the hearth rug, and caught the hem of the black dress in her hands, in a tumult of despair and remorse.
"He does not know what he is saying," she cried, breathlessly. "Oh, forgive him, forgive him! I will go away now, if you think I ought. He knows that you are better than I am. I will go away, and you will make him happy. Oh! I know you will make him happier than I ever could have done, even if he had really loved me as as he only thought he did."
A moment before, Priscilla had been gazing into the fire in a deep reverie. But the passionate voice stirred her. She looked down into the girl's imploring eyes, without a shadow of resentment.
"Get up," she said, a trifle huskily. "You have done no wrong to me. Get up, Theodora, and look at me."
Unsteadily as she spoke, there was so strange a power in her voice that Theo obeyed her. Wonderingly, sadly and humbly she rose to her feet, and stood before Priscilla as before a judge.
"Will you believe what I say to you?" she asked.
"Yes," answered Theo, sorrowfully.
"Well, then, I say this to you. You have not sacrificed me, you have saved me!"
It was perhaps characteristic of her that she did not say anything more. The subject dropped here, and she did not renew it.
It was a hard battle which Denis Oglethorpe fought during the next fortnight, in that small chamber of the wayside inn at St. Quentin; and it was a stern antagonist he waged war against that grim old enemy, Death.
But, with the help of the little doctor, the vis medicatrix natural , and his three nurses, he gained the victory at length, and conquered, only by a hair's breadth. The fierce fire of the brain wearing itself out, left him as weak as a child, and for days after he returned to consciousness, he had scarcely power to move a limb or utter a word.
When first he opened his eyes upon life again, no one was in the room but Priscilla Gower; and so it was upon Priscilla Gower that his first conscious glance fell.
He looked at her for a minute, before he found strength to speak. But at last his faltering voice came back to him.
"Priscilla," he whispered weakly. "Is it you? Poor girl!"
She bent over him with a calm face, but she did not attempt to caress him.
"Yes," she said. "Don't try your strength too much yet, Denis. It is I."
His heavy wearied eyes searched hers for an instant.
"And no one else?" he whispered again. "Is no one else here, Priscilla?"
"There is no one else in the room with me," she answered, quietly. "The rest are up-stairs. You must not talk, Denis. Try to be quiet."
There was hardly any need for the caution, for his eyes were closing again, even then, through sheer exhaustion.
Theo was in her room lying down and trying to rest. But half an hour later, when Pamela came up to her bedside, the dark eyes flew wide open in an instant.
"What is it, Pam?" she asked. "Is he worse again?"
Pam sat down on the bedside, and looked at her with a sort of pity for the almost haggard young face drooping against the white pillow.
"No," she said. "He is better. The doctor said he would be, and he is. Theo, he has spoken to Priscilla Gower, and knows her."
Theo sat up in bed, white and still all white, it seemed, but her large hollow eyes.
"Pamela," she said. "I must go home."
"Where?" said Pam.
The white face turned toward her pitifully.
"I don't know," the girl answered, her voice fluttering almost as weakly as Denis' had done. "I don't know somewhere, though. To Paris again or to Downport," with a faint shudder. And then, all at once she flung up her arms wildly, and dropped upon them, face downward.
"Oh, Pam," she cried out, "take me back to Downport, and let me die. I have no right here, and I had better go away. Oh, why did I ever come? Why did I ever come?"
She was sobbing in a hysterical, strained way, that was fairly terrible. Pamela bent over her, and touched her disordered hair with a singularly light touch. The tears welled up
was truer to him than he dared be to himself. There was no sound of raised or agitated voices, all was calm and seemingly silent. Fifteen minutes passed half an hour; nearly an hour, and then Priscilla Gower stepped out upon the landing, and Lady Throckmorton spoke to Theo.