It was not so far off, but that Stephen, following her hands with his eyes, could read what was printed on it, in large letters. He turned of a deadly hue, and a sudden horror seemed to fall upon him.
“I will stay here, Stephen,” said Rachael, quietly resuming her seat, “till the bells go Three. ‘Tis to be done again at three, and then she may be left till morning.”
“But thy rest agen to-morrow’s work, my dear.”
“I slept sound last night. I can wake many nights, when I am put to it. ‘Tis thou who art in need of rest – so white and tired. Try to sleep in the chair there, while I watch. Thou hadst no sleep last night, I can well believe. To-morrow’s work is far harder for thee than for me.”
He heard the thundering and surging out of doors, and it seemed to him as if his late angry mood were going about trying to get at him. She had cast it out; she would keep it out; he trusted to her to defend him from himself.
“She don’t know me, Stephen; she just drowsily mutters and stares. I have spoken to her times and again, but she don’t notice! ‘Tis as well so. When she comes to her right mind once more, I shall have done what I can, and she never the wiser.”
“How long, Rachael, is’t looked for, that she’ll be so?”
“Doctor said she would haply come to her mind tomorrow.”
His eyes again fell on the bottle, and a tremble passed over him, causing him to shiver in every limb. She thought he was chilled with the wet. “No,” he said; “it was not that. He had had a fright.”
“A fright?”
“Ay, ay! coming in. When I were walking. When I were thinking. When I – ” It seized him again; and he stood up, holding by the mantle-shelf, as he pressed his dank cold hair down with a hand that shook as if it were palsied.
“Stephen!”
She was coming to him, but he stretched out his arm to stop her.
“No! Don’t please; don’t! Let me see thee setten by the bed. Let me see thee, a’ so good, and so forgiving. Let me see thee as I have seen thee when I coom in. I can never see thee better than so. Never, never, never!”
He had a violent fit of trembling, and then sunk into his chair. After a time he controlled himself, and resting with an elbow on one knee, and his head upon that hand, could look toward Rachael. Seen across the dim candle with his moistened eyes, she looked as if she had a glory shining round her head. He could have believed she had. He did believe it, as the noise without shook the window, rattled at the door below, and went about the house clamoring and lamenting.
“When she gets better, Stephen, ’tis to be hoped she’ll leave thee to thyself again, and do thee no more hurt. Anyways we will hope so now. And now I shall keep silence, for I want thee to sleep.”
He closed his eyes, more to please her than to rest his weary head; but, by slow degrees as he listened to the great noise of the wind, he ceased to hear it, or it changed into the working of his loom, or even into the voices of the day (his own included) saying what had been really said. Even this imperfect consciousness faded away at last, and he dreamed a long, troubled dream.
He thought that he, and some one on whom his heart had long been set – but she was not Rachael, and that surprised him, even in the midst of his imaginary happiness – stood in the church being married. While the ceremony was performing, and while he recognised among the witnesses some whom he knew to be living, and many whom he knew to be dead, darkness came on, succeeded by the shining of a tremendous light. It broke from one line in the table of commandments at the altar, and illuminated the building with the words. They were sounded through the church too, as if there were voices in the fiery letters. Upon this, the whole appearance before him and around him changed, and nothing was left as it had been, but himself and the clergyman. They stood in the daylight before a crowd so vast, that if all the people in the world could have been brought together into one space, they could not have looked, he thought, more numerous; and they all abhorred him, and there was not one pitying or friendly eye among the millions that were fastened on his face. He stood on a raised stage, under his own loom; and, looking up at the shape the loom took, and hearing the burial service distinctly read, he knew that he was there to suffer death. In an instant what he stood on fell below him, and he was gone.