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.
“I am all right.”
There was no mist before Elizabeth 's eyes now. They saw clearly, quite, quite clearly. She looked at David, and David's face was grey-old and grey. So it had come. Now in this hour of physical weakness. The thing she dreaded.
To her own surprise, she felt no dread now. Only a great weariness. What could she say? What was she to say? All seemed useless-not worth while. But then there was David's face, his grey, old face. She must do her best-not for her own sake, but for David's.
She wondered a little that it should hurt him so much. It was not as though he loved her, or had ever loved her. Only of course this was a thing to cut a man, down to the very quick of his pride and his self-respect. It was that-of course it was that.
Whilst she was thinking, David spoke. He was standing by the table fingering the piece of string that lay there.
“ Elizabeth, do you know why you fainted?” he said.
“Yes,” said Elizabeth, and said no more.
A sort of shudder passed over David Blake.
“Then it 's true,” he said in a voice that was hardly a voice at all. There was a sound, and there were words. But it was not like a man speaking. It was like a long, quick breath of pain.
“Yes,” said Elizabeth. “It is true, David.”
There was a very great pity in her eyes.
“Oh, my God!” said David, and he sat down by the table and put his head in his hands. “Oh, my God!” he said again.
Elizabeth got up. She was trembling just a little, but she felt no faintness now. She put one hand on the mantelpiece, and so stood, waiting.
There was a very long silence, one of those profound silences which seem to break in upon a room and fill it. They overlie and blot out all the little sounds of every-day life and usage. Outside, people came and went, the traffic in the High Street came and went, but neither to David, nor to Elizabeth, did there come the smallest sound. They were enclosed in a silence that seemed to stretch unbroken, from one Eternity to another. It became an unbearable torment. To his dying day, when any one spoke of hell, David glimpsed a place of eternal silence, where anguish burned for ever with a still unwavering flame.
He moved at last, slowly, like a man who has been in a trance. His head lifted. He got up, resting his weight upon his hands. Then he straightened himself. All his movements were like those of a man who is lifting an intolerably heavy load.
“Why did you marry me?” he asked in a tired voice and then his tone hardened. “Who is the man? Who is he? Will he marry you if I divorce you?”
An unbearable pang of pity went through Elizabeth, and she turned her head sharply. David stopped looking at her.
She to be ashamed-oh, God!- Elizabeth ashamed-he could not look at her. He walked quickly to the window. Then turned back again because Elizabeth was speaking.
“David,” she said, in a low voice, “David, what sort of woman am I?”
A groan burst from David.
“You are a good woman. That 's just the damnable part of it. There are some women, when they do a thing like this, one only says they 've done after their kind-they're gone where they belong. When a good woman does it, it 's Hell-just Hell. And you 're a good woman.”