The Uttermost Farthing | Page 9

smiled at him a
little whimsical smile, "she told me that she thought I ought to know--it
was her duty to tell me--that I had heart disease, and that, though I
should probably live a long time, it was possible I might die at any
moment----"
A sudden wrath filled the dark, sensitive face of the man bending over
her.
"What nonsense!" he exclaimed with angry decision. "What will the
doctors say next, I wonder! I wish to God you would make up your
mind, Peggy, once and for all, never to see a doctor again! I beg of you,
if only for my sake, to promise me that you will not go again to any
doctor till I give you permission to do so. You don't know what I went
through five years ago when one of those charlatans declared that he
would not answer for the consequences if you didn't winter South,
and--and Tom would not let you go!"
He paused, and then added more gently, "And yet nothing
happened--you were none the worse for spending that winter in cold
Leicestershire!"
"Yes, that's true," she answered submissively, "I will make you the
promise you ask, Laurence. I daresay I have been foolish in going so
often to doctors; I don't know that they have ever done me much good."
His eyes, having now become quite accustomed to the dim light,
suddenly seemed to see in her face a slight change; a look of fatigue
and depression had crept over her mouth. He told himself with a pang
that after all she was a delicate, fragile human being--or was it the blue
shade which threw a strange pallor on the face he was scrutinising with
such deep, wistful tenderness?
He bent over her and tucked the rug round her feet.
"Turn round and try to go to sleep," he whispered. "It's a long, long
journey by this train. I'll wake you in good time before we get to

Dorgival."
She turned, as he told her, obediently, and then, acting on a sudden
impulse, she pulled him down once more to her, and kissed him as a
child might have done. "Good night," he said, "good night, my
love--'enchanting, noble little Peggy!'"
A smile lit up her face radiantly. It was a long, long time since
Vanderlyn had last uttered the charming lines first quoted by him very
early in their acquaintance, when he had seen her among her own
people, one of a band of joyous English boys and girls celebrating a
family festival--the golden wedding of her grandparents. Peggy had
been delicately, deliciously kind to the shy, proud American youth,
whom an introduction from valued friends had suddenly made free of
an English family clan.
That had been a year before her marriage to Tom Pargeter, the inheritor
of a patent dye process which had made him master of one of those
fantastic fortunes which impress the imagination of even the
unimaginative. That the young millionaire should deign to throw the
matrimonial handkerchief at their little Peggy had seemed to her family
a piece of magic good fortune. She could bring him good old blood,
and certain great social connections, in exchange for limitless wealth; it
had been regarded as an ideal marriage.
More than four years went by before Vanderlyn again saw Peggy, and
then he had found her changed--transformed from a merry,
light-hearted girl into a pensive, reserved woman. During the interval
he had often thought of her as one thinks of a delightful playfellow, but
he only came to love her after their second meeting--when he had seen,
at first with honest dismay, and then with shame-faced gladness, how
utterly ill-mated she and Tom Pargeter were the one to the other.
* * * * *
Vanderlyn made his way over to the other side of the railway carriage;
there he sat down, and, crossing his arms on his breast, after a very few
moments he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

III.
Vanderlyn woke with a start. He looked round, bewildered for a
moment. Then his brain cleared, and he felt vexed with himself, a little
ashamed of having slept. It seemed to him that he had been asleep
hours. How odious it would have been if at the first stopping place of
the demi-rapide some stranger had entered the railway carriage! Instead
of sleeping, he ought to have remained watching over that still figure
which lay so quietly resting on the other side of the carriage.
He stood up. How tired he felt, how strangely depressed and uneasy!
But that, after all, was natural, for his last four nights had been wakeful,
his last four days full of anxiety and suspense.
He turned and looked out of the window, wondering where they were,
how far