“Now tell me,” she repeated, wildly. “My dear Lady Breton, try to quiet yourself. You say he seemed better—in better spirits—when you went out?” “Yes—I thought so.” “So his servant tells me,” the physician continued gently. “He said he had not seen his master in such good spirits since he came to Nice.—Compose yourself—Take some more wine.—Half an hour ago I was sent for—” he paused, & in that pause she snatched at the truth he was trying gently to postpone. “He is dead?” she whispered. “Tell me at once. I am calm.” “He has been taken from us,” the physician answered, his voice tremulous with emotion. “Taken from us without suffering, thank God! His servant went into his room & found him…dead. I was sent for at once.” “Go on,” said Georgie, in a low voice, fixing her tearless eyes on his earnest, pitying face. “I can hear all. He died without…pain?” “Entirely. Nothing could have been more sudden or painless.” For a little while neither spoke; then Georgie rose suddenly. “Take me to him,” she said, in the same calm voice. “Take me, please.” “Can you bear it—so soon, Lady Breton?” “Take me,” she repeated. “I told him I would come back soon!” She put her hand on the doctor’s arm, & he led her out across the hall in silence; but at the door of her husband’s room she fainted suddenly, & fell back as she had done at Lochiel House. They carried her up to her room, & it was long before her consciousness could be restored. When she was roused from her stupour it changed into wild fever & delirium, & for nearly a week after Lord Breton’s sad & quiet funeral, she lay raving and moaning on her darkened bed. The fever was quieted at last, but she was terribly weakened & even when her mind returned scarcely realized that she had entered into the first days of her widowhood. It was talked of all over Nice, how the old English peer, Lord Breton of Lowood, had been carried off suddenly by the gout, while his wife was out driving; how rich & haughty he was; & how she, poor young creature, delicate, bright & beautiful, & just 21, had been left there in the sunny Mediterranean town, far from friends & home, with no one but her physician & her servants to care for her or to comfort her—had been left there—alone. But perhaps no one quite guessed all the peculiar bitterness that those words contained when, with her returning consciousness they dawned upon Georgie—“left alone.”

Chapter XV

A Summons

“Could ye come back to me, Douglas, Douglas,

In the old likeness that I knew!” Miss Mulock: “Douglas.”

Lord Breton died early in March; & it was three weeks later that Guy Hastings, returning from a certain eventful visit to Villa Doria-Pamfili which I have recorded in a previous chapter, found awaiting him at his studio a black-bordered letter with a Nice postmark. If he had not recognized the writing, this post-mark would have told him in an instant that it was from Georgie; for though all intercourse had ceased between them he had heard through some English friends that she was passing the Winter at Nice. The black edge & black seal of the envelope, united to the well-known manuscript, were a deep shock; & it was several minutes before he could compose himself sufficiently to read the letter.

“Nice, March ____th—Dear Guy, I should never venture to write this if I did not feel sure that I shall not live very long. Since Lord Breton’s death I have been much worse, they say; but I only know that my heart is breaking, & that I must see you once for goodbye. If you can forgive all the wrong I have done you—what bitter suffering it has brought me since!—come to me as soon as possible. Georgie.”

Hastings could scarcely read the end of the few, trembling lines for the tears that blinded him. Those heart-broken, pleading words seemed to melt away in an instant all the barriers of disappointment & wounded pride, & to wake up the old estranged love that was after all not dead—but sleeping! He scarcely noticed the mention of Lord Breton’s death, which reached him now for the first time—he only felt that Georgie was dying, that she had been unhappy & that she loved him still. Then there came a rebellious cry against the fate that reunited them only to part once more. Why must she die when a new promise of brightness was breaking through the storm of life? Why must she die when he was there once more to shield & cherish her as he had dreamed long ago? She should not die! Life must revive with reviving happiness, & the shadow of death wane in the sunrise of their joy. So he raved, pacing his lonely studio, through the long hours of the evening until in the midst of the incoherent flood of thought that overwhelmed him, there flashed suddenly the harsh reality that he had for the moment lost. What if Georgie lived? He was not free! How the self-delusion, the hasty mistake of that day, started up cruelly before him in this new light.