CHAPTER XXIV

Lord Reckage had been carried through the hall of Almouth House, but not

up the famous staircase of which he was so proud. He looked at it as

they bore him to the library, and although he was still in a kind of

stupor, the terrified servants could read in his eyes the certain

knowledge that he would never behold the marble walls or the portraits

of his ancestors again.

"Are you in pain, my lord? is your lordship in pain?" sobbed the

housekeeper. His features were injured and his face was perfectly

pallid--so much changed that he could not have been immediately

recognised. Four doctors--one of them a passer-by at the time of the

accident--had assembled. They found one shoulder was severely injured,

and the right collar-bone broken. He complained of great pain in his

side.

"Am I going to die, Sir Thomas?" said he.

"Why should you die?" replied the distinguished surgeon. "But you have

had a nasty fall."

"Pluto shied at something," answered his lordship; "mind they don't

shoot him. I won't have him shot."

Then, for a few moments, he lost consciousness.

When Orange arrived, the physicians were looking very grave, and

telegrams had been despatched to all the young man's near relatives.

"He has called for you several times," said Sir Thomas; "and," he added,

dropping his voice, "is there any lady who could meet ... the family? I

fancy I caught a lady's name more than once. Could it have been----"

"Sara," suggested Orange, to relieve his embarrassment.

"It certainly sounded like Sara."

"Then I will send Lord Garrow a note--she is Lord Garrow's daughter--a

lifelong friend. Is there no hope?"

"He may have a pretty good night."

Robert bowed his head and asked no more. He sat by the dying man, whose

sufferings, although they were a little alleviated by morphia, made him

restless. He moaned even in his snatches of sleep, and spoke

occasionally--always about the accident. Once he mentioned Agnes:

"Agnes will be sorry when she hears."

Toward daybreak he turned to Orange, and said quite simply--

"You are different from the rest. You have the priest's element in you;

there is an incessant struggle and toil to cut one another's throat

among us average men--all striving after success. You weren't built that

way. God bless you."

In the morning his father and the near relatives arrived. The women

cried bitterly. The aged peer looked on in stony grief--drinking in his

son's scarred faced and glancing, with despair, from time to time, at

the clock.

"It isn't going, is it?" he asked.

No, it had been checked; the tick disturbed his lordship, but there was

an hour-glass on the table.

"How many hours do they think----?"

"Perhaps ten hours."

When the sand had run down at the conclusion of the first hour, no one

reversed the instrument. But Lady Margaret Sempton, the Earl's sister,

sent a whispered message to the Bishop of Hadley, who was waiting, much

altered by sorrow and anxiety, in the ante-room. Reckage had asked to

see him. He had always liked the good old man, and the rest withdrew

during their short interview.

Meanwhile carriage after carriage drove up to the door; caller after

caller appeared with cards, notes, and inquiries; name after name was

inscribed in the visitors' book; telegrams came from the Royal family,

from all parts of the country and the Continent.

"My poor boy. I didn't know he had so many friends," said his father.

"God forgive me, I used to think he wasted his time on fads."

And odd people came also. Trainers, jockeys, and horse-dealers rubbed

shoulders on the doorsteps with collectors of old furniture,

missionaries, electioneering agents, ladies of the chorus, of the

_corps de ballet_, shabby-genteel individuals of both sexes out of work,

and the like; each had his degree of regret and an anecdote.

"He was always very kind to me," said this one, that one, and the other.

Bradwyn, noting some of these unusual visitors, observed that Reckage

had a knack of pleasing the lower classes and half-educated persons

generally. He heard a Bible-reader say to the footman: "_Take ye heed,

watch and pray; for ye know not when the time is!_" and he shuddered at

this exhibition of bad taste. Lord Garrow had been unremitting in his

personal inquiries, but Sara did not come till she received the

following from Orange--

"He is conscious, and he asks to see you."

She reached the room as the Bishop of Hadley was coming out; tears were

in his eyes and he did not notice the young lady who glided past him as

lightly as a shadow. Poor Reckage recognised her step, however, and

pulled the sheet half over his face lest she should be startled at its

harsh disfigurements. She threw off her hat and veil and fell on her

knees by the side of his bed.

"Speak to me, Beauclerk, speak to me; it is I--Sara."

"I know you," he whispered; "you are the one I loved the best. But I

haven't been true to anybody. I only wish to goodness I had another

chance. I'd be different--I'd show 'em ... I never meant ..." he took

her hand, her beautiful, tapering hand loaded with sapphires ... "like

your eyes, old girl ... don't cry ... and I say, I posted that ...

letter after all ... to please you. Are you ... pleased?"

He spoke no more.

* * * * *

Action is the essence of political parties, and the members of the

League had the ink barely dry on their telegrams of condolence before

they despatched others, summoning a special meeting for the

consideration of future steps. Orange, who was regarded as a man devoid

of ambition, was unanimously elected a member of the Executive

Committee; he was a good speaker, he could mind his own business, he

never pulled wires, and it was his rule to step aside when others behind

him showed any disposition to push toward the front. On the evening of

the day on which Lord Reckage died, Aumerle and Ullweather called at

Vigo Street as a preliminary move in their new plan of campaign. But

Robert was not there. He sat all that night, a solitary watcher, in the

chamber of death. His affection for his old pupil was something stronger

than a brother's love. Whether he saw him as others saw him, or whether

he was aware of certain pleasant traits in that uncertain character

which escaped the common run of dull observers, his devotion had never

wearied in all the years of their acquaintanceship.

The old housekeeper crept into the room when the bereaved family had

retired, and she was on her way to bed.

"You and me, sir, always got on with his lordship," she said, looking

down, with Robert, at the still, marred face. "We understood him. He

wasn't all for self--as many thought. But his heart wanted touching. If

you could touch his heart, a kinder gentleman didn't live. And if it was

my last breath, I'd call him the best of the lot--in spite of his

tantrums, and his changeableness, and his haughty way sometimes. Mark my

words, the glory of Almouth dies with him. Mr. Hercy will bring us down

to rack and ruin. O, sir, I'm glad I'm old. I never want to see the

sorrow that is sure to come to Almouth."

But Orange was not thinking about the house of Almouth, or its fate. His

thoughts were with the soul of the young man who had enjoyed life so

well, and made so many plans, and cherished so many worldly hopes--of

the young man who had existed apparently to indulge his own will, spend

money, kill time, and fulfil a few rather showy responsibilities. And

yet what Robert remembered best was his laugh. He could hear it still.