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How he knew was not apparent, inasmuch as for fear of exciting him no one had offered the information. Isabel came in and sat by his bed in the dim light; there was only a shaded candle in a corner of the room. She told the nurse she might go—she herself would sit with him for the rest of the evening. He had opened his eyes and recognised her, and had moved his hand, which lay helpless beside him, so that she might take it. But he was unable to speak; he closed his eyes again and remained perfectly still, only keeping her hand in his own. She sat with him a long time—till the nurse came back; but he gave no further sign. He might have passed away while she looked at him; he was already the figure and pattern of death. She had thought him far gone in Rome, and this was worse; there was but one change possible now. There was a strange tranquillity in his face; it was as still as the lid of a box. With this he was a mere lattice of bones; when he opened his eyes to greet her it was as if she were looking into immeasurable space. It was not till midnight that the nurse came back; but the hours, to Isabel, had not seemed long; it was exactly what she had come for. If she had come simply to wait she found ample occasion, for he lay three days in a kind of grateful silence. He recognised her and at moments seemed to wish to speak; but he found no voice. Then he closed his eyes again, as if he too were waiting for something—for something that certainly would come. He was so absolutely quiet that it seemed to her what was coming had already arrived; and yet she never lost the sense that they were still together. But they were not always together; there were other hours that she passed in wandering through the empty house and listening for a voice that was not poor Ralph’s. She had a constant fear; she thought it possible her husband would write to her. But he remained silent, and she only got a letter from Florence and from the Countess Gemini. Ralph, however, spoke at last—on the evening of the third day.

“I feel better to-night,” he murmured, abruptly, in the soundless dimness of her vigil; “I think I can say something.” She sank upon her knees beside his pillow; took his thin hand in her own; begged him not to make an effort—not to tire himself. His face was of necessity serious—it was incapable of the muscular play of a smile; but its owner apparently had not lost a perception of incongruities. “What does it matter if I’m tired when I’ve all eternity to rest? There’s no harm in making an effort when it’s the very last of all. Don’t people always feel better just before the end? I’ve often heard of that; it’s what I was waiting for. Ever since you’ve been here I thought it would come. I tried two or three times; I was afraid you’d get tired of sitting there.” He spoke slowly, with painful breaks and long pauses; his voice seemed to come from a distance. When he ceased he lay with his face turned to Isabel and his large unwinking eyes open into her own. “It was very good of you to come,” he went on. “I thought you would; but I wasn’t sure.”

“I was not sure either till I came,” said Isabel.

“You’ve been like an angel beside my bed. You know they talk about the angel of death. It’s the most beautiful of all. You’ve been like that; as if you were waiting for me.”

“I was not waiting for your death; I was waiting for—for this. This is not death, dear Ralph.”

“Not for you—no. There’s nothing makes us feel so much alive as to see others die. That’s the sensation of life—the sense that we remain. I’ve had it—even I. But now I’m of no use but to give it to others. With me it’s all over.” And then he paused. Isabel bowed her head further, till it rested on the two hands that were clasped upon his own. She couldn’t see him now; but his far-away voice was close to her ear. “Isabel,” he went on suddenly, “I wish it were over for you.” She answered nothing; she had burst into sobs; she remained so, with her buried face. He lay silent, listening to her sobs; at last he gave a long groan. “Ah, what is it you have done for me?”

“What is it you did for me?” she cried, her now extreme agitation half smothered by her attitude. She had lost all her shame, all wish to hide things. Now he must know; she wished him to know, for it brought them supremely together, and he was beyond the reach of pain. “You did something once—you know it. O Ralph, you’ve been everything! What have I done for you—what can I do to-day? I would die if you could live. But I don’t wish you to live; I would die myself, not to lose you.” Her voice was as broken as his own and full of tears and anguish.

“You won’t lose me—you’ll keep me. Keep me in your heart; I shall be nearer to you than I’ve ever been. Dear Isabel, life is better; for in life there’s love. Death is good—but there’s no love.”

“I never thanked you—I never spoke—I never was what I should be!” Isabel went on. She felt a passionate need to cry out and accuse herself, to let her sorrow possess her. All her troubles, for the moment, became single and melted together into this present pain. “What must you have thought of me? Yet how could I know? I never knew, and I only know to-day because there are people less stupid than I.”

“Don’t mind people,” said Ralph. “I think I’m glad to leave people.”

She raised her head and her clasped hands; she seemed for a moment to pray to him. “Is it true—is it true?” she asked.

“True that you’ve been stupid? Oh no,” said Ralph with a sensible intention of wit.

“That you made me rich—that all I have is yours?”

He turned away his head, and for some time said nothing. Then at last: “Ah, don’t speak of that—that was not happy.” Slowly he moved his face toward her again, and they once more saw each other. “But for that—but for that—!” And he paused. “I believe I ruined you,” he wailed.

She was full of the sense that he was beyond the reach of pain; he seemed already so little of this world. But even if she had not had it she would still have spoken, for nothing mattered now but the only knowledge that was not pure anguish—the knowledge that they were looking at the truth together.

“He married me for the money,” she said. She wished to say everything; she was afraid he might die before she had done so. He gazed at her a little, and for the first time his fixed eyes lowered their lids. But he raised them in a moment, and then, “He was greatly in love with you,” he answered.

“Yes, he was in love with me. But he wouldn’t have married me if I had been poor. I don’t hurt you in saying that. How can I? I only want you to understand. I always tried to keep you from understanding; but that’s all over.”

“I always understood,” said Ralph.

“I thought you did, and I didn’t like it. But now I like it.”

“You don’t hurt me—you make me very happy.” And as Ralph said this there was an extraordinary gladness in his voice. She bent her head again, and pressed her lips to the back of his hand. “I always understood,” he continued, “though it was so strange—so pitiful. You wanted to look at life for yourself—but you were not allowed; you were punished for your wish. You were ground in the very mill of the conventional!”

“Oh yes, I’ve been punished,” Isabel sobbed.

He listened to her a little, and then continued: “Was he very bad about your coming?”

“He made it very hard for me. But I don’t care.”

“It is all over then between you?”

“Oh no; I don’t think anything’s over.”

“Are you going back to him?” Ralph gasped.

“I don’t know—I can’t tell. I shall stay here as long as I may. I don’t want to think—I needn’t think. I don’t care for anything but you, and that’s enough for the present. It will last a little yet. Here on my knees, with you dying in my arms, I’m happier than I have been for a long time. And I want you to be happy—not to think of anything sad; only to feel that I’m near you and I love you. Why should there be pain—? In such hours as this what have we to do with pain? That’s not the deepest thing; there’s something deeper.”

Ralph evidently found from moment to moment greater difficulty in speaking; he had to wait longer to collect himself. At first he appeared to make no response to these last words; he let a long time elapse. Then he murmured simply: “You must stay here.”

“I should like to stay—as long as seems right.”

“As seems right—as seems right?” He repeated her words. “Yes, you think a great deal about that.”

“Of course one must. You’re very tired,” said Isabel.

“I’m very tired. You said just now that pain’s not the deepest thing. No—no. But it’s very deep. If I could stay—”

“For me you’ll always be here,” she softly interrupted. It was easy to interrupt him.

But he went on, after a moment: “It passes, after all; it’s passing now. But love remains. I don’t know why we should suffer so much. Perhaps I shall find out. There are many things in life. You’re very young.”

“I feel very old,” said Isabel.

“You’ll grow young again. That’s how I see you. I don’t believe—I don’t believe—” But he stopped again; his strength failed him.

She begged him to be quiet now. “We needn’t speak to understand each other,” she said.

“I don’t believe that such a generous mistake as yours can hurt you for more than a little.”

“Oh Ralph, I’m very happy now,” she cried through her tears.

“And remember this,” he continued, “that if you’ve been hated you’ve also been loved. Ah but, Isabel—adored!” he just audibly and lingeringly breathed.

“Oh my brother!” she cried with a movement of still deeper prostration.

CHAPTER LV

He had told her, the first evening she ever spent at Gardencourt, that if she should live to suffer enough she might some day see the ghost with which the old house was duly provided. She apparently had fulfilled the necessary condition; for the next morning, in the cold, faint dawn, she knew that a spirit was standing by her bed. She had lain down without undressing, it being her belief that Ralph would not outlast the night. She had no inclination to sleep; she was waiting, and such waiting was wakeful. But she closed her eyes; she believed that as the night wore on she should hear a knock at her door. She heard no knock, but at the time the darkness began vaguely to grow grey she started up from her pillow as abruptly as if she had received a summons. It seemed to her for an instant that he was standing there—a vague, hovering figure in the vagueness of the room. She stared a moment; she saw his white face—his kind eyes; then she saw there was nothing. She was not afraid; she was only sure. She quitted the place and in her certainty passed through dark corridors and down a flight of oaken steps that shone in the vague light of a hall-window. Outside Ralph’s door she stopped a moment, listening, but she seemed to hear only the hush that filled it. She opened the door with a hand as gentle as if she were lifting a veil from the face of the dead, and saw Mrs. Touchett sitting motionless and upright beside the couch of her son, with one of his hands in her own. The doctor was on the other side, with poor Ralph’s further wrist resting in his professional fingers. The two nurses were at the foot between them. Mrs. Touchett took no notice of Isabel, but the doctor looked at her very hard; then he gently placed Ralph’s hand in a proper position, close beside him. The nurse looked at her very hard too, and no one said a word; but Isabel only looked at what she had come to see. It was fairer than Ralph had ever been in life, and there was a strange resemblance to the face of his father, which, six years before, she had seen lying on the same pillow. She went to her aunt and put her arm around her; and Mrs. Touchett, who as a general thing neither invited nor enjoyed caresses, submitted for a moment to this one, rising, as might be, to take it. But she was stiff and dry-eyed; her acute white face was terrible.

“Dear Aunt Lydia,” Isabel murmured.

“Go and thank God you’ve no child,” said Mrs. Touchett, disengaging herself.

Three days after this a considerable number of people found time, at the height of the London “season,” to take a morning train down to a quiet station in Berkshire and spend half an hour in a small grey church which stood within an easy walk. It was in the green burial-place of this edifice that Mrs. Touchett consigned her son to earth. She stood herself at the edge of the grave, and Isabel stood beside her; the sexton himself had not a more practical interest in the scene than Mrs. Touchett. It was a solemn occasion, but neither a harsh nor a heavy one; there was a certain geniality in the appearance of things. The weather had changed to fair; the day, one of the last of the treacherous May-time, was warm and windless, and the air had the brightness of the hawthorn and the blackbird. If it was sad to think of poor Touchett, it was not too sad, since death, for him, had had no violence. He had been dying so long; he was so ready; everything had been so expected and prepared. There were tears in Isabel’s eyes, but they were not tears that blinded. She looked through them at the beauty of the day, the splendour of nature, the sweetness of the old English churchyard, the bowed heads of good friends. Lord Warburton was there, and a group of gentlemen all unknown to her, several of whom, as she afterwards learned, were connected with the bank; and there were others whom she knew. Miss Stackpole was among the first, with honest Mr. Bantling beside her; and Caspar Goodwood, lifting his head higher than the rest—bowing it rather less. During much of the time Isabel was conscious of Mr. Goodwood’s gaze; he looked at her somewhat harder than he usually looked in public, while the others had fixed their eyes upon the churchyard turf. But she never let him see that she saw him; she thought of him only to wonder that he was still in England. She found she had taken for granted that after accompanying Ralph to Gardencourt he had gone away; she remembered how little it was a country that pleased him. He was there, however, very distinctly there; and something in his attitude seemed to say that he was there with a complex intention. She wouldn’t meet his eyes, though there was doubtless sympathy in them; he made her rather uneasy. With the dispersal of the little group he disappeared, and the only person who came to speak to her—though several spoke to Mrs. Touchett—was Henrietta Stackpole. Henrietta had been crying.

Ralph had said to Isabel that he hoped she would remain at Gardencourt, and she made no immediate motion to leave the place. She said to herself that it was but common charity to stay a little with her aunt. It was fortunate she had so good a formula; otherwise she might have been greatly in want of one. Her errand was over; she had done what she had left her husband to do. She had a husband in a foreign city, counting the hours of her absence; in such a case one needed an excellent motive. He was not one of the best husbands, but that didn’t alter the case. Certain obligations were involved in the very fact of marriage, and were quite independent of the quantity of enjoyment extracted from it. Isabel thought of her husband as little as might be; but now that she was at a distance, beyond its spell, she thought with a kind of spiritual shudder of Rome. There was a penetrating chill in the image, and she drew back into the deepest shade of Gardencourt. She lived from day to day, postponing, closing her eyes, trying not to think. She knew she must decide, but she decided nothing; her coming itself had not been a decision. On that occasion she had simply started. Osmond gave no sound and now evidently would give none; he would leave it all to her. From Pansy she heard nothing, but that was very simple: her father had told her not to write.

Mrs. Touchett accepted Isabel’s company, but offered her no assistance; she appeared to be absorbed in considering, without enthusiasm but with perfect lucidity, the new conveniences of her own situation. Mrs. Touchett was not an optimist, but even from painful occurrences she managed to extract a certain utility. This consisted in the reflexion that, after all, such things happened to other people and not to herself. Death was disagreeable, but in this case it was her son’s death, not her own; she had never flattered herself that her own would be disagreeable to any one but Mrs. Touchett. She was better off than poor Ralph, who had left all the commodities of life behind him, and indeed all the security; since the worst of dying was, to Mrs. Touchett’s mind, that it exposed one to be taken advantage of. For herself she was on the spot; there was nothing so good as that. She made known to Isabel very punctually—it was the evening her son was buried—several of Ralph’s testamentary arrangements. He had told her everything, had consulted her about everything. He left her no money; of course she had no need of money. He left her the furniture of Gardencourt, exclusive of the pictures and books and the use of the place for a year; after which it was to be sold. The money produced by the sale was to constitute an endowment for a hospital for poor persons suffering from the malady of which he died; and of this portion of the will Lord Warburton was appointed executor. The rest of his property, which was to be withdrawn from the bank, was disposed of in various bequests, several of them to those cousins in Vermont to whom his father had already been so bountiful. Then there were a number of small legacies.

“Some of them are extremely peculiar,” said Mrs. Touchett; “he has left considerable sums to persons I never heard of. He gave me a list, and I asked then who some of them were, and he told me they were people who at various times had seemed to like him. Apparently he thought you didn’t like him, for he hasn’t left you a penny. It was his opinion that you had been handsomely treated by his father, which I’m bound to say I think you were—though I don’t mean that I ever heard him complain of it. The pictures are to be dispersed; he has distributed them about, one by one, as little keepsakes. The most valuable of the collection goes to Lord Warburton. And what do you think he has done with his library? It sounds like a practical joke. He has left it to your friend Miss Stackpole—‘in recognition of her services to literature.’ Does he mean her following him up from Rome? Was that a service to literature? It contains a great many rare and valuable books, and as she can’t carry it about the world in her trunk he recommends her to sell it at auction. She will sell it of course at Christie’s, and with the proceeds she’ll set up a newspaper. Will that be a service to literature?”

This question Isabel forbore to answer, as it exceeded the little interrogatory to which she had deemed it necessary to submit on her arrival. Besides, she had never been less interested in literature than to-day, as she found when she occasionally took down from the shelf one of the rare and valuable volumes of which Mrs. Touchett had spoken. She was quite unable to read; her attention had never been so little at her command. One afternoon, in the library, about a week after the ceremony in the churchyard, she was trying to fix it for an hour; but her eyes often wandered from the book in her hand to the open window, which looked down the long avenue. It was in this way that she saw a modest vehicle approach the door and perceived Lord Warburton sitting, in rather an uncomfortable attitude, in a corner of it. He had always had a high standard of courtesy, and it was therefore not remarkable, under the circumstances, that he should have taken the trouble to come down from London to call on Mrs. Touchett. It was of course Mrs. Touchett he had come to see, and not Mrs. Osmond; and to prove to herself the validity of this thesis Isabel presently stepped out of the house and wandered away into the park. Since her arrival at Gardencourt she had been but little out of doors, the weather being unfavourable for visiting the grounds. This evening, however, was fine, and at first it struck her as a happy thought to have come out. The theory I have just mentioned was plausible enough, but it brought her little rest, and if you had seen her pacing about you would have said she had a bad conscience. She was not pacified when at the end of a quarter of an hour, finding herself in view of the house, she saw Mrs. Touchett emerge from the portico accompanied by her visitor. Her aunt had evidently proposed to Lord Warburton that they should come in search of her. She was in no humour for visitors and, if she had had a chance, would have drawn back behind one of the great trees. But she saw she had been seen and that nothing was left her but to advance. As the lawn at Gardencourt was a vast expanse this took some time; during which she observed that, as he walked beside his hostess, Lord Warburton kept his hands rather stiffly behind him and his eyes upon the ground. Both persons apparently were silent; but Mrs. Touchett’s thin little glance, as she directed it toward Isabel, had even at a distance an expression. It seemed to say with cutting sharpness: “Here’s the eminently amenable nobleman you might have married!” When Lord Warburton lifted his own eyes, however, that was not what they said. They only said “This is rather awkward, you know, and I depend upon you to help me.” He was very grave, very proper and, for the first time since Isabel had known him, greeted her without a smile. Even in his days of distress he had always begun with a smile. He looked extremely selfconscious.

“Lord Warburton has been so good as to come out to see me,” said Mrs. Touchett. “He tells me he didn’t know you were still here. I know he’s an old friend of yours, and as I was told you were not in the house I brought him out to see for himself.”

“Oh, I saw there was a good train at 6.40, that would get me back in time for dinner,” Mrs. Touchett’s companion rather irrelevantly explained. “I’m so glad to find you’ve not gone.”

“I’m not here for long, you know,” Isabel said with a certain eagerness.

“I suppose not; but I hope it’s for some weeks. You came to England sooner than—a—than you thought?”

“Yes, I came very suddenly.”

Mrs. Touchett turned away as if she were looking at the condition of the grounds, which indeed was not what it should be, while Lord Warburton hesitated a little. Isabel fancied he had been on the point of asking about her husband—rather confusedly—and then had checked himself. He continued immitigably grave, either because he thought it becoming in a place over which death had just passed, or for more personal reasons. If he was conscious of personal reasons it was very fortunate that he had the cover of the former motive; he could make the most of that. Isabel thought of all this. It was not that his face was sad, for that was another matter; but it was strangely inexpressive.

“My sisters would have been so glad to come if they had known you were still here—if they had thought you would see them,” Lord Warburton went on. “Do kindly let them see you before you leave England.”

“It would give me great pleasure; I have such a friendly recollection of them.”

“I don’t know whether you would come to Lockleigh for a day or two? You know there’s always that old promise.” And his lordship coloured a little as he made this suggestion, which gave his face a somewhat more familiar air. “Perhaps I’m not right in saying that just now; of course you’re not thinking of visiting. But I meant what would hardly be a visit. My sisters are to be at Lockleigh at Whitsuntide for five days; and if you could come then—as you say you’re not to be very long in England—I would see that there should be literally no one else.”

Isabel wondered if not even the young lady he was to marry would be there with her mamma; but she did not express this idea.

“Thank you extremely,” she contented herself with saying; “I’m afraid I hardly know about Whitsuntide.”

“But I have your promise—haven’t I?—for some other time.”

There was an interrogation in this; but Isabel let it pass. She looked at her interlocutor a moment, and the result of her observation was that—as had happened before—she felt sorry for him. “Take care you don’t miss your train,” she said. And then she added: “I wish you every happiness.”

He blushed again, more than before, and he looked at his watch. “Ah yes, 6.40; I haven’t much time, but I’ve a fly at the door. Thank you very much.” It was not apparent whether the thanks applied to her having reminded him of his train or to the more sentimental remark. “Good-bye, Mrs. Osmond; good-bye.” He shook hands with her, without meeting her eyes, and then he turned to Mrs. Touchett, who had wandered back to them. With her his parting was equally brief; and in a moment the two ladies saw him move with long steps across the lawn.

“Are you very sure he’s to be married?” Isabel asked of her aunt.

“I can’t be surer than he; but he seems sure. I congratulated him, and he accepted it.”

“Ah,” said Isabel, “I give it up!”—while her aunt returned to the house and to those avocations which the visitor had interrupted.

She gave it up, but she still thought of it—thought of it while she strolled again under the great oaks whose shadows were long upon the acres of turf. At the end of a few minutes she found herself near a rustic bench, which, a moment after she had looked at it, struck her as an object recognised. It was not simply that she had seen it before, nor even that she had sat upon it; it was that on this spot something important had happened to her—that the place had an air of association. Then she remembered that she had been sitting there, six years before, when a servant brought her from the house the letter in which Caspar Goodwood informed her that he had followed her to Europe; and that when she had read the letter she looked up to hear Lord Warburton announcing that he should like to marry her. It was indeed an historical, an interesting, bench; she stood and looked at it as if it might have something to say to her. She wouldn’t sit down on it now—she felt rather afraid of it. She only stood before it, and while she stood the past came back to her in one of those rushing waves of emotion by which persons of sensibility are visited at odd hours. The effect of this agitation was a sudden sense of being very tired, under the influence of which she overcame her scruples and sank into the rustic seat. I have said that she was restless and unable to occupy herself; and whether or no, if you had seen her there, you would have admired the justice of the former epithet, you would at least have allowed that at this moment she was the image of a victim of idleness. Her attitude had a singular absence of purpose; her hands, hanging at her sides, lost themselves in the folds of her black dress; her eyes gazed vaguely before her. There was nothing to recall her to the house; the two ladies, in their seclusion, dined early and had tea at an indefinite hour. How long she had sat in this position she could not have told you; but the twilight had grown thick when she became aware that she was not alone. She quickly straightened herself, glancing about, and then saw what had become of her solitude. She was sharing it with Caspar Goodwood, who stood looking at her, a few yards off, and whose footfall on the unresonant turf, as he came near, she had not heard. It occurred to her in the midst of this that it was just so Lord Warburton had surprised her of old.

She instantly rose, and as soon as Goodwood saw he was seen he started forward. She had had time only to rise when, with a motion that looked like violence, but felt like—she knew not what, he grasped her by the wrist and made her sink again into the seat. She closed her eyes; he had not hurt her; it was only a touch, which she had obeyed. But there was something in his face that she wished not to see. That was the way he had looked at her the other day in the churchyard; only at present it was worse. He said nothing at first; she only felt him close to her—beside her on the bench and pressingly turned to her. It almost seemed to her that no one had ever been so close to her as that. All this, however, took but an instant, at the end of which she had disengaged her wrist, turning her eyes upon her visitant. “You’ve frightened me,” she said.

“I didn’t mean to,” he answered, “but if I did a little, no matter. I came from London a while ago by the train, but I couldn’t come here directly. There was a man at the station who got ahead of me. He took a fly that was there, and I heard him give the order to drive here. I don’t know who he was, but I didn’t want to come with him; I wanted to see you alone. So I’ve been waiting and walking about. I’ve walked all over, and I was just coming to the house when I saw you here. There was a keeper, or someone, who met me; but that was all right, because I had made his acquaintance when I came here with your cousin. Is that gentleman gone? Are you really alone? I want to speak to you.” Goodwood spoke very fast; he was as excited as when they had parted in Rome. Isabel had hoped that condition would subside; and she shrank into herself as she perceived that, on the contrary, he had only let out sail. She had a new sensation; he had never produced it before; it was a feeling of danger. There was indeed something really formidable in his resolution. She gazed straight before her; he, with a hand on each knee, leaned forward, looking deeply into her face. The twilight seemed to darken round them. “I want to speak to you,” he repeated; “I’ve something particular to say. I don’t want to trouble you—as I did the other day in Rome. That was of no use; it only distressed you. I couldn’t help it; I knew I was wrong. But I’m not wrong now; please don’t think I am,” he went on with his hard, deep voice melting a moment into entreaty. “I came here to-day for a purpose. It’s very different. It was vain for me to speak to you then; but now I can help you.”