CHAPTER XXXII.

When he did not return toward night Charles Bunbury and his wife became alarmed. He had only taken his hat and cloak from the hall as he went out; he had left no line to tell them that he did not mean to return.

Bunbury questioned Mary about him. Had he not been with her in the still-room, he inquired.

She told him the truth—as much of the truth as she could tell.

“I am afraid that his running away was due to me,” she said. “If so, I shall never forgive myself.”

“What can be your meaning, my dear?” he inquired. “I thought that you and he had always been the closest friends.”

“If we had not been such friends we should never have quarreled,” said she. “You know that our mother has had her heart set upon my acceptance of Colonel Gwyn. Well, she went to see Goldsmith at his cottage, and begged of him to come to me with a view of inducing me to accept the proposal of Colonel Gwyn.”

“I heard nothing of that,” said he, with a look of astonishment. “And so I suppose when he began to be urgent in his pleading you got annoyed and said something that offended him.”

She held down her head.

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” said he “Have you not seen long ago that that man is no more than a child in simplicity?”

“I am ashamed of myself,” said she. “I shall never forgive myself for my harshness.”

“That will not bring him back,” said her brother-in-law. “Oh! it is always the best of friends who part in this fashion.”

Two days afterwards he told his wife that he was going to London. He had so sincere an attachment for Goldsmith, his wife knew very well that he felt that sudden departure of his very deeply, and that he would try and induce him to return.

But when Bunbury came back after the lapse of a couple of days, he came back alone. His wife met him in the chaise when the coach came up. His face was very grave.

“I saw the poor fellow,” he said. “I found him at his chambers in Brick Court. He is very ill indeed.”

“What, too ill to be moved?” she cried. He shook his head.

“Far too ill to be moved,” he said. “I never saw a man in worse condition. He declared, however, that he had often had as severe attacks before now, and that he has no doubt he will recover. He sent his love to you and to Mary. He hopes you will forgive him for his rudeness, he says.”

“His rudeness! his rudeness!” said Katherine, her eyes streaming with tears. “Oh, my poor friend—my poor friend!” She did not tell her sister all that her husband had said to her. Mary was, of course, very anxious to hear how Oliver was, but Katherine only said that Charles had seen him and found him very ill. The doctor who was in attendance on him had promised to write if he thought it advisable for him to have a change to the country.

The next morning the two sisters were sitting together when the postboy's horn sounded. They started up simultaneously, awaiting a letter from the doctor.

No letter arrived, only a narrow parcel, clumsily sealed, addressed to Miss Hor-neck in a strange handwriting.

When she had broken the seals she gave a cry, for the packet contained sheet after sheet in Goldsmith's hand—poems addressed to her—the love-songs which his heart had been singing to her through the long hopeless years.

She glanced at one, then at another, and another, with beating heart.

She started up, crying—

“Ah! I knew it, I knew it! He loves me—he loves me as I love him—only his love is deep, while mine was shallow! Oh, my dear love—he loves me, and now he is dying! Ah! I know that he is dying, or he would not have sent me these; he would have sacrificed himself—nay, he has sacrificed himself for me—for me!”

She threw herself on a sofa and buried her face in her hands.

“My dear—dear sister,” said Katherine, “is it possible that you—you——”

“That I loved him, do you ask?” cried Mary, raising her head. “Yes, I loved him—I love him still—I shall never love any one else, and I am going to him to tell him so. Ah! God will be good—God will be good. My love shall live until I go to him.”

“My poor child!” said her sister. “I could never have guessed your secret. Come away. We will go to him together.”

They left by the coach that day, and early the next morning they went together to Brick Court.

A woman weeping met them at the foot of the stairs. They recognised Mrs. Abington.

“Do not tell me that I am too late—for God's sake say that he still lives!” cried Mary.

The actress took her handkerchief from her eyes.

She did not speak. She did not even shake her head. She only looked at the girl, and the girl understood.

She threw herself into her sister's arms.

“He is dead!” she cried. “But, thank God, he did not die without knowing that one woman in the world loved him truly for his own sake.”

“That surely is the best thought that a man can have, going into the Presence,” said Mrs. Abington. “Ah, my child, I am a wicked woman, but I know that while you live your fondest reflection will be that the thought of your love soothed the last hours of the truest man that ever lived. Ah, there was none like him—a man of such sweet simplicity that every word he spoke came from his heart. Let others talk about his works; you and I love the man, for we know that he was greater and not less than those works. And now he is in the presence of God, telling the Son who on earth was born of a woman that he had all a woman's love.”

Mary put her arm about the neck of the actress, and kissed her.

She went with her sister among the weeping men and women—he had been a friend to all—up the stairs and into the darkened room.

She threw herself on her knees beside the bed.

THE END.