Three Girls from School

you preach!"

  "Then perhaps you will not speak to me. I am exceedingly tired; ajourney to Zermatt and back again without any rest makes a man inclinedfor slumber. I will sleep, if you have no objection. In the morningperhaps we shall both be in a better temper than we are at present."

  "I wish," said Annie, speaking in sudden passion, "that I could flingmyself out of that window. You have destroyed every prospect I ever hadin life."

  "You talk in an exceedingly silly way," said Saxon. "Now do try and bequiet, if you please."

  His absolute disregard of her threat to end her own miserable life madeAnnie at once furious and also strangely subdued. She sat back in hercorner like a little wild creature caught in a trap. There was nothingwhatever to be done but to submit. To submit as she was now doing wasindeed new to Annie Brooke. Her head was in a whirl; but by-and-by, toher own relief, she also slept, and so part of the miserable journey wasgot through.

  It was late on the following afternoon when Annie and John Saxon foundthemselves driving in the gig to Rashleigh Rectory. They had to passthrough the little village, and Annie looked with a sort of terror atDawson's shop. She wondered if the matter of the cheque would ever bebrought up against her. So occupied was she with herself and with allthe dreadful things she had done that she could scarcely think of herdying old uncle at all.

  The memory of a text, too, which she had learned as a child began to bepresent with her. Her head was aching, and the text, with itswell-known words, tormented her.

  "`Be sure your sin will find you out. Be sure--your sin--will find youout,'" murmured Annie in too low a tone for Saxon to hear.

  They had been met at the railway station with the information that MrBrooke was still alive, and Saxon uttered a sigh of relief. Then hisjourney had not been in vain. Then the old man would be gratified. Thegreatest longing and wish of his life would be fulfilled. The darlingof his heart would be with him at the end.

  John Saxon turned and looked at the girl. She was crouching up in thegig. She felt cold, for the evenings were turning a little chill. Shehad wrapped an old cloak, which Mrs Shelf had sent, around her slimfigure.

  Her small, fair face peeped out from beneath the shelter of the cloak.Her eyes had a terrified light in them. Saxon felt that, for MrBrooke's sake, Annie must not enter the Rectory in her present state ofwild revolt and rebellion.

  He suddenly turned down a shady lane which did not lead direct to theRectory. His action awoke no sort of notice in Annie's mind. Her unclewas alive; he probably was not so very bad after all. This was a plotof John Saxon's--a plot to destroy her happiness. But for John, howdifferent would be her life now!

  They drove down about a hundred yards of the lane, and then the youngman pulled the horse up and drew the gig towards the side of the road.This fact woke Annie from the sort of trance into which she had sunk,and she turned and looked at him.

  "Why are you stopping?" she asked.

  "Because I must speak to you, Annie," was her cousin's response.

  "Have you anything fresh to say? Is there anything fresh to say?"

  "There is something that must be said," replied John Saxon. "Youcannot, Annie, enter the Rectory and meet Mrs Shelf, and, above allthings, go into that chamber where your dear uncle is waiting for theAngel of Death to fetch him away to God, looking as you are doing now.You are, I well know, in a state of great mental misery. You have donewrong--how wrong, it is not for me to decide. I know of some of yourshortcomings, but this is no hour for me to speak of them. All I cansay at the present moment is this: that you are very young, and you aremotherless, and--you are about, little Annie, to be fatherless. You areon the very eve of losing the noblest and best father that girl everpossessed. Your uncle has stood in the place of a father to you. Younever appreciated him; you never understood him. He was so high aboveyou that you could never even catch a glimpse of the goodness of hissoul. But I cannot believe in the possibility of any one being quitewithout heart or quite without some sense of honour; and I should beslow, very slow, to believe it of you.

  "Now, there is one last thing which you have got to do for your uncleMaurice, and I have brought you down here to tell you what that lastthing is."

  Annie was silent. She shrank a little more into the shelter of therough old cloak, and moved farther from her cousin.

  "You must do it Annie," he said, speaking in a decided voice; "you muston no account whatever fail at this supreme juncture."

  "Well?" said Annie when he paused.

  "Your uncle is expecting you. God has kept him alive in order that hemay see your face again. To him your face is as that of an angel. Tohim those blue eyes of yours are as innocent as those of a little child.To him you are the spotless darling, undefiled, uninjured by the world,whom he has nurtured and loved for your father's sake and for your own.You must on no account, Annie, open his eyes to the truth with regard toyou now. It is your duty to keep up the illusion as far as he isconcerned. I have taken all this trouble to bring you to his bedside inorder that he may have his last wish gratified, and you must not failme. Perhaps your uncle's prayers may be answered; and God, who can doall things, will change your heart.

  "Now, remember, Annie, you have to forget yourself to-night and to thinkonly of the dying old man. Promise me, promise me that you will do so."

  "You have spoken very strangely, Cousin John," said Annie after a verylong pause. "I--I will do--my--best I am very bad--but--I will do--mybest."

  The next instant Annie's icy-cold little hand was clasped in that ofJohn Saxon.

  "You have to believe two things," he said. "A great man who was as yourfather, whom God is taking to Himself. That man loves you with all hisheart and soul and strength. When he dies, there is another man,unworthy, unfit truly, to stand in his shoes, but nevertheless who willnot forsake you. Now let us get back to the Rectory."

  There was a feeling of peace in the old house, a wonderful calm, astrange sense of aloofness as though the ordinary things of life hadbeen put away and everyday matters were of no account. The fact wasthis: that for several days now, for long days and long nights, thebeautiful Angel of Death had been brooding over the place; and thepeople who lived in the old Rectory had recognised the fact and hadarranged their own lives accordingly.

  Money did not matter at all in the shadow of that Presence; nor didgreatness--worldly greatness, that is--nor ambition, nor mere pleasure;and, above all things, self-love was abhorrent in that little home ofpeace, for the Angel of Death brooding there brought with him the veryessence of peace.

  It was a curious fact that Annie Brooke, when she passed under thethreshold and entered on what she expected to be the most awful time ofher whole life, found that same peace immediately descend upon her. Shelost all sense of fear, and every scrap of regret at having left thegood and gay things of life at Zermatt.

  She had not been five minutes in the house before she forgot Zermatt,and Mabel, and Lady Lushington. It is true, she thought of Priscilla,and Priscilla's eyes seemed to haunt her. But even they, with theirlook of reproach, could not affect the queer peace that had fallen uponher.

  Mrs Shelf kissed her warmly, not uttering a word of reproach, and Anniestepped with a light and fairy step, and crept to her own room and puton one of her little home dresses--a blue gingham which she often woreand which her uncle loved. She tripped downstairs again in a fewminutes, and entered the kitchen and said to Mrs Shelf:

  "Now I am ready."

  "Go in by yourself, darling," said Mrs Shelf. "I won't take you. He isin the old room; there is, no one with him. He knows you are here; heknew it the minute you stepped across the threshold. You couldn'tdeceive him, bless you! Go to him all alone, dearie, and at once."

  So Annie went. A minute later she was seated by the old man's bedside,and silently her little hand was laid on his. He just turned his headvery slowly to look at her. They both felt themselves to be quite alonetogether except for the presence of the Angel of Dea
th, who, broodingover the house, brooded more deeply over this sacred chamber, with wingsheld open, ready to spread themselves at any instant, and arms halfextended to carry that saint of God to his home in the skies.

  Mr Brooke had longed for Annie, had imagined her to be by his side inhours of delirium, had awakened to his usual senses a day or two beforethe end and had discovered her absence; had said no word of reproachwith regard to his little Annie, but had missed her with a greatheart-hunger. Now she was here. She was his own dear child. To therest of the world Annie was at that moment a wicked, designing,double-faced, double-natured creature, but to Mr Brooke she was just hiswee pet lamb, his darling; the treasure whom God had given him.

  "You are back, my love," he said when his very feeble voice could speak."I missed you, my little