Edward's voice was filling the room. It was quite a pleasant voice, and if it never varied into expression, at least it never went out of tune, and every word was distinct.
“Ah, well, I know the sadness That tears and rends your heart, How that from all life's gladness You stand, far, far apart-“
sang Edward, in tones of the most complete unconcern.
It was Mary who supplied all the sentiment that could be wished for. She dwelt on the chords with an almost superfluous degree of feeling, and her eyes were quite moist.
At any other time this combination of Edward and Lord Henry Somerset would have entertained Elizabeth not a little, but just now there was no room in her thoughts for any one but David. The light that was upon her gave her vision. She looked upon David with eyes that had grown very clear, and as she looked she understood. That he had changed, deteriorated, she had seen at the first glance. Now she discerned in him the cause of such an alteration-something wrenched and twisted. The scene in her little brown room rose vividly before her. When David had allowed Mary to sway him, he had parted with something, which he could not now recall. He had broken violently through his own code, and the broken thing was failing him at every turn. Mary's eyes, Mary's voice, Mary's touch-these things had waked in him something beyond the old passion. The emotional strain of that scene had carried him beyond his self-control. A feverish craving was upon him, and his whole nature burned in the flame of it.
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?