"Don't speak to me," she said, as we stopped before her father's door. "Iam not fit for it yet; I know what you feel." I pressed her to my heart, and let the embrace speak for me. She yielded to it, faintly sighing.
"To-morrow?" I whispered. She bent her head, and left me.
Walking home through the wood, I became aware, little by little, that my thoughts were not under the customary control. Over and over again, Itried to review the events of that terrible evening, and failed.
Fragments of other memories presented themselves--and then deserted me.
Nonsense, absolute nonsense, found its way into my mind next, and rose in idiotic words to my lips. I grew too lazy even to talk to myself. Istrayed from the path. The mossy earth began to rise and sink under my feet, like the waters in a ground-swell at sea. I stood still, in a state of idiot-wonder. The ground suddenly rose right up to my face. I remember no more.
My first conscious exercise of my senses, when I revived, came to me by way of my ears. Leaden weights seemed to close my eyes, to fetter my movements, to silence my tongue, to paralyze my touch. But I heard a wailing voice, speaking close to me, so close that it might have been my own voice: I distinguished the words; I knew the tones.
"Oh, my master, my lord, who am I that I should live--and you die! and you die!"Was it her warm young breath that quickened me with its vigorous life? Ionly know that the revival of my sense of touch did certainly spring from the contact of her lips, pressed to mine in the reckless abandonment of grief without hope. Her cry of joy, when my first sigh told her that Iwas still a living creature, ran through me like an electric shock. Iopened my eyes; I held out my hand; I tried to help her when she raised my head, and set me against the tree under which I had been stretched helpless. With an effort I could call her by her name. Even that exhausted me. My mind was so weak that I should have believed her, if she had declared herself to be a spirit seen in a dream, keeping watch over me in the wood.
Wiser than I was, she snatched up my hat, ran on before me, and was lost in the darkness.
An interval, an unendurable interval, passed. She returned, having filled my hat from the spring. But for the exquisite coolness of the water falling on my face, trickling down my throat, I should have lost my senses again. In a few minutes more, I could take that dear hand, and hold it to me as if I was holding to my life. We could only see each other obscurely, and in that very circumstance (as we confessed to each other afterwards) we found the needful composure before we could speak.
"Cristel! what does it mean?"
"Poison," she answered. "And _he_ has suffered too."To my astonishment, there was no anger in her tone: she spoke of him as quietly as if she had been alluding to an innocent man.
"Do you mean that he has been at death's door, like me?""Yes, thank God--or I should never have found you here. Poor old Gloody came to us, in search of help. "My master's in a swoon, and I can't bring him to." Directly I heard that, I remembered that you had drunk what he had drunk. What had happened to him, must have happened to you. Don't ask me how long it was before I found you, and what I felt when I did find you. I do so want to enjoy my happiness! Only let me see you safely home, and I ask no more."She helped me to rise, with the encouraging words which she might have used to a child. She put my arm in hers, and led me carefully along through the wood, as if I had been an old man.
Cristel had saved my life--but she would hear of no allusion to it. She knew how the poisoner had plotted to get rid of me--but nothing that Icould say induced her to tell me how she had made the discovery. In view of Trimley Deen, my guardian angel dropped my arm.
"Go on," she said, "and let me see the servant let you in, before I run home."If she had not been once more wiser than I was, I should have taken her with me to the house; I should have positively refused to let her go back by herself. Nothing that I could say or do had the slightest effect on her resolution. Does the man live who could have taken leave of her calmly, in my place? She tore herself away from me, with a sigh of bitterness that was dreadful to hear.
"Oh, my darling," I said, "do I distress you?""Horribly," she answered; "but you are not to blame."Those were her farewell words. I called after her. I tried to follow her.
She was lost to me in the darkness.
