Chapter XXXII: "love Strong as Death!"

Neither the Duc de Biron nor De Vaudreville had thought it necessary to place any of their soldiery or police within the mansion--perhaps because the person they required was himself outside it--and, consequently, there was nothing to prevent Bertie from making his way from the hall to the upper regions where he naturally supposed Kate would be--nothing, that is to say, beyond a few terrified-looking menservants, who, on perceiving him mount the stairs, retreated before him, probably imagining that he had been left in possession of the place by those who had taken away their master. They were quickly, however, undeceived by the stranger calling to them to ask who was now in charge of the establishment, and to whom he should address himself with a view to finding Lady Fordingbridge.

"Lady Fordingbridge," one of the footmen replied, answering him in French, as he had spoken, though his accent showed plainly enough that he was a Scotchman--"Lady Fordingbridge! She sees no one; she is very ill. She is, indeed----"

"What!" interrupted Bertie, in so sad a voice that even the man refrained from concluding his speech, which he had intended to do with the words, "dying, they say."

But here a lady who had been descending the stairs from above, and now reached the corridor on the first floor at the same time that Elphinston did, came forward and said, as she motioned the servants back:

"It is indeed Captain Elphinston! Oh, why not have come sooner, and why, of all nights, be so unhappy as to select this one? Captain Elphinston, your disappearance has very nearly brought Lady Fordingbridge to her grave--that, and the tragic death of her husband."

"She knows that, then?" he asked, as he recognised the lady who spoke to him, she being the wife of Lord Ogilvie, whose title at that time was forfeited in England, though afterward restored--"she knows that, then?"

"Yes, she knows it," Lady Ogilvie replied.

"Does she also know the reason of it--of why he was led forth to execution on the Place de Grève?" Bertie next demanded. He himself knew it now; his mother, whom he found still alive and well, though terribly prostrated by the two years and more of anxiety which she had endured since his disappearance, having told him all.

"No," her ladyship replied, "that she does not know. We have never told her. Rather we have let her suppose that he was about to be executed for some political crime. We could not tell her how base he was. Yet," she went on, "it seems that you and he met in prison--that you forgave him. Did you forgive him _that?_"

"Nay," replied Bertie, "I knew not what he had done, and only saw that his mind was gone. And, not knowing, I forgave. Now, Lady Ogilvie, I beseech you let me go to her!"

"First," she replied, "I must warn her that you are here. She is very ill; she cannot bear a shock."

"Is she as ill as that?"

"She is very weak and feeble. Perhaps now you have appeared again, come back almost from the very jaws of death, she may recover. Let us pray she will!"

Then she left him alone, saying she would soon return.

Agonizing as had been the long hours, weeks, months that he had spent alone in the chapel-room of the Bastille, and nearly as much alone in the _calotte_ with De Chevagny, when, both heartbroken, they had sometimes scarcely exchanged a word for days, none had seemed more bitter, more unendurable, than the few minutes during which Lady Ogilvie was absent. For everything that he had gathered as to the state of Kate's health, since he had emerged into the world once more, pointed only too plainly to the fact that he had but found her again to again lose her, and to lose her this time beyond all hopes of recovery.

"Come," said Lady Ogilvie, returning to him--"come; she is now expecting you. I have prepared her. Come."

He followed her up the great stairs to the second floor, and there his companion opened the door and ushered him into a large, well-warmed and lighted room, and then left them.

Seated before the great fire, yet with her face turned eagerly towards the door as though watching for him, he saw her once again--saw the woman he had loved so long, the woman whom Fate had parted him from. She was thin, now, almost to attenuation--she, whose supple, graceful figure had once been one of her greatest charms--so thin that she looked more like a child that was unwell than a grown woman, and on her face there were no roses now.

"Kate," he exclaimed, advancing swiftly to her as she held out her thin worn arms to him, and falling on his knee beside her--"Kate, my darling, I have come back at last; am free once more! Kate, nothing can part us now."

For answer she let her head droop to his shoulder and lie there. It seemed to her that at last perfect peace had come, that all the black and dreadful past was gone and done with for ever; then she whispered: "Nothing part us! Oh, my dear, my love, there is one parting more only to be made; then--then--we shall meet to never part again. Bertie, you have come in time, yet too late--too late for this world."

"No, no," he said, "it shall not be! Kate, do not leave me now. Think, think, my darling, of how long we have waited, of all that has separated us so long, and that now there is no longer any barrier between us. Think of the dreary months in prison, months that I counted day by day, hoping, praying ever to get free and come back to you; think how brave you have been, always waiting for me. O Kate, my sweet, do not go and leave me now alone!" and as he spoke he wept, and buried his head upon her lap.

"Nay," she said, stroking his head and noticing how grey and grizzled it was now, though he was still so young a man--"nay, do not weep, Bertie. You are too strong to shed tears, too strong and brave. It was your strength and manhood I loved so much, was so proud of. Do not weep now; for it is best, Bertie, best so."

"Best!" he answered almost fiercely, and raising his head as he did so, while she with one wan hand put back softly from his forehead the brown locks flecked with grey. "Best! How can it be best; how, how? O Kate, think, think of all our hopes formed so long ago, the hopes of happy years to come to be passed together!--the hopes that we should grow old together, and then, together at the end, share one calm and peaceful grave. My darling, those years are still before us; I cannot lose you now. Stay, stay with me! Remember all our plans formed in the days of the Rue Trousse Vache, the days when we wandered forth hand in hand together. Oh, stay with me, my darling, stay!"

It appeared as if the rose-blush came back into her cheeks at his whispered prayer, as if a new life was dawning for her again. Then she murmured:

"Oh, my dear, it seems as though I must not leave you now. Bertie, I will stay with you, if I may--if God will let me!"