He spoke to Elizabeth as usual, but he looked at her with new eyes. And he, too, waited.
He came home one day to find the household in a commotion. It appeared that Sarah had scalded her hand, Elizabeth was out, and Mrs. Havergill was divided between the rival merits of flour, oil, and a patent preparation which she had found very useful when suffering from chilblains. She safe-guarded her infallibility by remarking, that there was some as held with one thing and some as held with another. She also observed, that “scalds were 'orrid things.”
“Now, there was an 'ousemaid I knew, Milly Clarke her name was, she scalded her hand very much the same as you 'ave, Sarah, and first thing, it swelled up as big as my two legs and arter that it turned to blood-poisoning, and the doctors could n't do nothing for her, pore girl.”
At this point Sarah broke into noisy weeping and David arrived. When he had bound up the hand, consoled the trembling Sarah, and suggested that she should have a cup of tea, he inquired where Elizabeth was. She might be at Mrs. Mottisfont's, suggested Mrs. Havergill, as she followed him into the hall.
“You 're not thinking of sending Sarah to the 'orspital, are you sir?”
“No, of course not, she 'll be all right in a day or two. I 'll just walk up the hill and meet Mrs. Blake.”
“I 'm sure it 's a mercy she were out,” said Mrs. Havergill.
“Why?” said David, turning at the door. Mrs. Havergill assumed an air of matronly importance.
“It might ha' given her a turn,” she said, “for the pore girl did scream something dreadful. I 'm sure it give me a turn, but that 's neither here nor there. What I was thinking of was Mrs. Blake's condition, sir.”
Mrs. Havergill was obviously a little nettled at David's expression.
“Nonsense,” said David quickly.
Mrs. Havergill went back to Sarah.
“'Nonsense,' he says, and him a doctor. Why, there was me own pore mother as died with her ninth, and all along of a turn she got through seeing a child run over. And he says, 'Nonsense.'“
David walked up the hill in a state of mind between impatience and amusement. How women's minds did run on babies. He supposed it was natural, but there were times when one could dispense with it.
He found Mary at home and alone. “ Elizabeth? Oh, no, she has n't been near me for days,” said Mary. “As it happened, I particularly wanted to see her. But she has n't been near me.”
She considered that Elizabeth was neglecting her. Only that morning she had told Edward so.
“She does n't come to see me on purpose,” she had said. “But I know quite well why. I don't at all approve of the way she 's going on, and she knows it. I don't think it 's right. I think some one ought to tell David. No, Edward, I really do. I don't understand Elizabeth at all, and she 's simply afraid to come and see me because she knows that I shall speak my mind.”
Now, as she sat and talked to David, the idea that it might be her duty to enlighten him presented itself to her mind afresh. A sudden and brilliant idea came into her head, and she immediately proceeded to act upon it.
“I had a special reason for wanting to see her,” she said. “I had a lovely box of things down from town on approval, and I wanted her to see them.”
“Things?” said David.
“Oh, clothes,” said Mary, with a wave of the hand. “You now they 'll send you anything now. By the way, I bought a present for Liz, though she does n't deserve it. Will you take it down to her? I 'll get it if you don't mind waiting a minute.”
She was away for five minutes, and then returned with a small brown-paper parcel in her hand.
“You can open it when you get home,” she said. “Open it and show it to Liz, and see whether you like it. Tell her I sent it with my love.”
“Now there won't be any more nonsense,” she told Edward.
Edward looked rather unhappy, but, warned by previous experience, said nothing,
David found Elizabeth in the dining-room. She was putting a large bunch of scarlet gladioli into a brown jug upon the mantelpiece.
“I 've got a present for you,” said David.
“David, how nice of you. It 's not my birthday.”
“I 'm afraid it 's not from me at all. I looked in to see if you were with Mary, and she sent you this, with her love. By the way, you 'd better go and see her, I think she 's rather huffed.”
As he spoke he was undoing the parcel. Elizabeth had her back towards him. The flowers would not stand up just as she wished them to.
“I can't think why Molly should send me a present,” she said, and then all at once something made her turn round.
The brown-paper wrapping lay on the table. David had taken something white out of the parcel. He held it up and they both looked at it. It was a baby's robe, very fine, and delicately embroidered.
Elizabeth made a wavering step forward. The light danced on the white robe, and not only on the robe. All the room was full of small dancing lights. Elizabeth put her hand behind her and felt for the edge of the mantelpiece. She could not find it. Everything was shaking. She swung half round, and all the dancing lights flashed in her eyes as she fell forwards.
CHAPTER XXIV. THE LOST NAME
You are as old as Egypt, and as young as yesterday,
Oh, turn again and look again, for when you look I know
The dusk of death is but a dream, that dreaming, dies away
And leaves you with the lips I loved, three thousand years ago.
The mists of that forgotten dream, they fill your brooding eyes,
With veil on strange revealing veil that wavers, and is gone,
And still between the veiling mists, the dim, dead centuries rise,
And still behind the farthest veil, your burning soul burns on.
You are as old as Egypt, and as young as very Youth,
Before your still, immortal eyes the ages come and go,
The dusk of death is but a dream that dims the face of Truth-
Oh, turn again, and look again, for when you look, I know.
WHEN Elizabeth came to herself, the room was full of mist. Through the mist, she saw David's face, and quite suddenly in these few minutes it had grown years older.
He spoke. He seemed a long way off.
“Drink this.”
“What is it?” said Elizabeth faintly.
“Water.”
Elizabeth raised herself a little and drank. The faintness passed. She became aware that the collar of her dress was unfastened, and she sat up and began to fasten it.
David got up, too.