Dr. Hilton took his hands from his patient's shoulders and shook him warmly by both hands:-'I am glad, old fellow! It was worth waiting for, wasn't it? But Isay, it was a dangerous thing to take off those bandages before Ipermitted. However, it has done no harm! But it was lucky that Imistrusted your patience and put the time for the experiment a week later than I thought necessary . . . What is it?' He turned from one to the other questioningly; there was a look on Harold's face that he did not quite comprehend.
'H-s-h,' said the latter warningly, 'I'll tell you all about it . . . some time!'
The awkward pause was broken by Pearl, who came to the Doctor and said:
'I must kiss you, you know. It was you who saved The Man's eyes.
Stephen has told me how you watched him!' The Doctor was somewhat taken aback; as yet he was ignorant of Pearl's existence. However, he raised the child in his arms and kissed her, saying:
'Thank you, my dear! I did all I could. But he helped much himself;except at the very last. Don't you ever go and take off bandages, if you should ever have the misfortune to have them on, without the doctor's permission!' Pearl nodded her head wisely and then wriggled out of his arms and came again to Harold, looking up at him protectingly and saying in an old-fashioned way:
'How are you feeling now? None the worse, I hope, HAROLD!'
The Man lifted her up and kissed her again. When he set her down she came over to Lady de Lannoy and held up her arms to be lifted:
'And I must kiss you again too, Stephen!' If Lady de Lannoy hadn't loved the sweet little thing already she would have loved her for that!
The door was opened, and the butler announced:
'Luncheon is served, your Ladyship.'
After a few days Harold went over to Varilands to stay for a while with the Stonehouses. Mr. Stonehouse had arrived, and both men were rejoiced to meet again. The elder never betrayed by word or sign that he recognised the identity of the other person of the drama of whom he had told him and who had come so accidentally into his life;and the younger was grateful to him for it. Harold went almost every day to Lannoy, and sometimes the Stonehouses went with him; at other times Stephen paid flying visits to Varilands. She did not make any effort to detain Harold; she would not for worlds have made a sign which might influence him. She was full now of that diffidence which every woman has who loves. She felt that she must wait; must wait even if the waiting lasted to her grave. She felt, as every woman does who really loves, that she had found her Master.
And Harold, to whom something of the same diffidence was an old story, got the idea that her reticence was a part of the same feeling whose violent expression had sent him out into the wilderness. And with the thought came the idea of his duty, implied in her father's dying trust: 'Give her time! . . . Let her choose!' For him the clock seemed to have stopped for two whole years, and he was back at the time when the guardianship of his boy life was beginning to yield to the larger and more selfish guardianship of manhood.
Stephen, noticing that he did not come near her as closely as she felt he might, and not realising his true reason--for when did love ever realise the true reason of the bashfulness of love?--felt a chillness which in turn reacted on her own manner.
And so these two ardent souls, who yearned for each other's love and the full expression of it, seemed as if they might end after all in drifting apart. Each thought that their secret was concealed. But both secrets were already known to Mrs. Stonehouse, who knew nothing;and to Mr. Stonehouse, who knew everything. Even Pearl had her own ideas, as was once shown in a confidence when they were alone in Stephen's bedroom after helping her to finish her dressing, just as Stephen herself had at a similar age helped her Uncle Gilbert. After some coy leading up to the subject of pretty dresses, the child putting her little mouth to the other's ear whispered:
'May I be your bridesmaid, Stephen?' The woman was taken aback; but she had to speak at once, for the child's eyes were on her:
'Of course you will, darling. But I--I may never be married.'
'You! You must! I know someone who will make you!' Stephen's heart beat hard and rapidly. The child's talk, though sweet and dear, was more than embarrassing. With, however, the desire to play with fire, which is a part of the nature of women, she answered:
'You have some queer ideas, little one, in that pretty knowledge-box of yours.'
'Oh! he never told me. But I know it all the same! And you know it too, Stephen!' This was getting too close to be without danger; so she tried to divert the thought from herself:
'My darling, you may guess about other people, though I don't say you ought; but you must not guess about me!'
'All right!' then she held up her arms to be lifted on the other's knee and said:
'I want to whisper to you!' Her voice and manner were so full of feeling that somehow the other was moved. She bent her head, and Pearl taking her neck in her little palms, said:
'I thought, oh! long ago, that I would marry him myself. But you knew him first . . . And he only saved me . . . But you saved him!' .
. . And then she laid her head down on the throbbing bosom, and sobbed . . .
And Stephen sobbed too.
Before they left the room, Stephen said to her, very gravely, for the issue might be one of great concern:
'Of course, Pearl dear, our secrets are all between ourselves!'
Pearl crossed her two forefingers and kissed them. But she said nothing; she had sworn! Stephen went on:
'And, darling, you will remember too that one must never speak or even think if they can help it about anyone's marrying anyone else till they say so themselves! What is it, dear, that you are smiling at?'
'I know, Stephen! I musn't take off the bandage till the Doctor says so!'
Stephen smiled and kissed her. Hand in hand, Pearl chattering merrily, they went down to the drawing-room.