Edward had passed to another song.
“One more kiss from my darling one,” he sang in a slightly perfunctory manner. His voice was getting tired, and he seemed a little absent-minded for a lover who was about to plunge into Eternity. The manner in which he requested death to come speedily was a trifle unconvincing. As he began the next verse David made a sudden movement. A log of wood upon the fire had fallen sharply, and there was a quick upward rush of flame. David looked round, facing the glow, and as he did so his eyes met Elizabeth 's. Just for one infinitesimal moment something seemed to pass from her to him. It was one of those strange moments which are not moments of time at all, and are therefore not subject to time's laws. Elizabeth Chantrey's eyes were full of peace. Full, too, of a passionate gentleness. It was a gentleness which for an instant touched the sore places in David's soul with healing, and for that one instant David had a glimpse of something very strong, very tender, that was his, and yet incomprehensibly withheld from his understanding. lt was one of those instantaneous flashes of thought-one of those gleams of recognition which break upon the dullness of material sense. Before and after-darkness, the void, the unstarred night, a chaos of things forgotten. But for one dazzled instant, the lightning stab of Truth, unrealized.
Elizabeth did not look away, or change colour. The peace was upon her still. She smiled a little, and as the moment passed, and the dark closed in again upon David's mind, she saw a spark of rather savage humour come into his eyes.
“Then come Eternity-”
“No, that 's enough, Mary, I 'm absolutely hoarse,” remarked Edward, all in the same breath, and with very much the same expression.
Mary got up, and began to shut the piano. The light shone on her white, uncovered neck.
CHAPTER IX. MARY IS SHOCKED
Through fire and frost and snow
I see you go,
I see your feet that bleed,
My heart bleeds too.
I, who would give my very soul for you,
What can I do?
I cannot help your need.
THAT first evening was one of many others, all on very much the same pattern. David Blake would come in, after tea, or after dinner, sit for an hour in almost total silence, and then go away again. Every time that he came, Elizabeth 's heart sank a little lower. This change, this obscuring of the man she loved, was an unreality, but how some unrealities have power to hurt us.
December brought extra work to the Market Harford doctors. There was an epidemic of measles amongst the children, combined with one of influenza amongst their elders. David Blake stood the extra strain but ill. He was slipping steadily down the hill. His day's work followed only too often upon a broken or sleepless night, and to get through what had to be done, or to secure some measure of sleep, he had recourse more and more frequently to stimulant. If no patient of his ever saw him the worse for drink, he was none the less constantly under its influence. If it did not intoxicate him, he came to rely upon its stimulus, and to distrust his unaided strength. He could no longer count upon his nerve, and the fear of all that nerve failure may involve haunted him continually and drove him down.
“Look here, Blake, you want a change. Why don't you go away?” said Tom Skeffington. It was a late January evening, and he had dropped in for a smoke and a chat. “The press of work is over now, and I could very well manage the lot for a fortnight or three weeks. Will you go?”
“No, I won't,” said David shortly.
Young Skeffington paused. It was not much after six in the evening, and David's face was flushed, his hand unsteady.
“Look here, Blake,” he said, and then stopped, because David was staring at him out of eyes that had suddenly grown suspicious.
“Well?” said David, still staring.
“Well, I should go away if I were you-go to Switzerland, do some winter sports. Get a thorough change. Come back yourself again.”
There was ever so slight an emphasis on the last few words, and David flashed into sudden anger.
“Mind your own business, and be damned to you, Skeffington,” he cried.
Tom Skeffington shrugged his shoulders.
“Oh, certainly,” he said, and made haste to be gone.
Blake in this mood was quite impracticable. He had no mind for a scene.
David sat on, with a tumbler at his elbow. So they wanted him out of the way. That was the third person who had told him he needed a change-the third in one week. Edward was one, and old Dr. Bull, and now Skeffington. Yes, of course, Skeffington would like him out of the way, so as to get all the practice into his own hands. Edward too. Was it this morning, or yesterday morning, that Edward had asked him when he was going to take a holiday? Now he came to think of it, it was yesterday morning. And he supposed that Edward wanted him out of the way too. Perhaps he went too often to Edward's house. David began to get angry. Edward was an ungrateful hound. “Damned ungrateful,” said David's muddled brain. The idea of going to see Mary began to present itself to him. If Edward did not like it, Edward could lump it. He had been told to come whenever he liked. Very well, he liked now. Why should n't he?
He got up and went out into the cold. Then, when he was half-way up the High Street he remembered that Edward had gone away for a couple of days. It occurred to him as a very agreeable circumstance. Mary would be alone, and they would have a pleasant, friendly time together. Mary would sit in the rosy light and play to him, not to Edward, and sing in that small sweet voice of hers-not to Edward, but to him.
It was a cold, crisp night, and the frosty air heightened the effect of the stimulant which he had taken. He had left his own house flushed, irritable, and warm, but he arrived at the Mottisfonts' as unmistakably drunk as a man may be who is still upon his legs.
He rushed past Markham in the hall before she had time to do more than notice that his manner was rather odd, and she called after him that Mrs. Mottisfont was in the drawing-room.
David went up the stairs walking quite steadily, but his brain, under the influence of one idea, appeared to work in a manner entirely divorced from any volition of his.
Mary was sitting before the fire, in the rosy glow of his imagining. She wore a dim purple gown, with a border of soft dark fur. A book lay upon her lap, but she was not reading. Her head, with its dark curls, rested against the rose-patterned chintz of the chair. Her skin was as white as a white rose leaf. Her lips as softly red as real red roses. A little amethyst heart hung low upon her bosom and caught the light. There was a bunch of violets at her waist. The room was sweet with them.
Mary looked up half startled as David Blake came in. He shut the door behind him, with a push, and she was startled outright when she saw his face. He looked at her with glazed eyes, and smiled a meaningless and foolish smile.
“Edward is out,” said Mary, “he is away.” And then she wished that she had said anything else. She looked at the bell, and wondered where Elizabeth was. Elizabeth had said something about going out-one of her sick people.
“Yes-out,” said David, still smiling. “That 's why I 've come. He 's out-Edward 's out-gone away. You 'll play to me-not to Edward-to-night. You 'll sit in this nice pink light and-play to me, won't you-Mary dear?” The words slipped into one another, tripped, jostled, and came with a run.