Chapter XXXVIII: “across Death’s DIM Hills.”

“When the grass shall cover me,
Head to foot, where I am lying;
When not any wind that blows,
Summer blooms, nor winter snows
Shall awake me to your sighing;
Close above me as you pass,
You will say, ‘How kind she was!’
You will say, ‘How true she was!’
When the grass grows over me.

“When the grass shall cover me,
Holden close to earth’s warm bosom,
While I laugh, or weep, or sing,
Nevermore for anything,
You will find, in blade and blossom,
Sweet, small voices odorous,
Tender pleaders of my cause,
That shall speak me as I was--
When the grass grows over me.

“When the grass shall cover me,
Ah! beloved, in my sorrow
Very patient I can wait,
Knowing that, or soon or late,
There will dawn a clearer morrow.
When your heart will moan, ‘Alas!
Now I know how true she was;
Now I know how dear she was’--
When the grass grows over me!”

Doctor Verne steps across the threshold of the drawing-room, then stops, with a cry of surprise and alarm:

“My dear madam, what has happened?”

She is standing in the center of the floor, like a beautiful statue, the soft, graceful folds of her white cashmere morning dress draping the tall, stately figure regally. Her white hands are fast locked in an anguished clasp, her head droops forlornly forward. Her face is as white as her dress, her lips are purple and drawn back from her pearly teeth in the tense lines of physical pain, while her eyes, usually so soft and thoughtful, are dilated and dark, like great velvety pansies, and stare straight before her with a fixedness of aspect that seem to see nothing.

“Madam!” the young man repeats, in such a startled tone that she looks toward him tremblingly, then tears her clasped hands apart, extending them toward him with a gesture of piteous pleading that says, plainer than words:

“I am sad; I am suffering. Comfort me.”

Tenderly as a brother he puts his arms around the swaying form, and the heavy head falls like a drooping flower upon his breast. She clings to him, trembling with pain, and he bends his head, whispering, with gentle reproach:

“You have suffered yourself to become unduly excited--after all my warnings.”

“My heart”--she gasps faintly, and then the quivering form grows still, the head droops lower, and he lays her down on a silken lounge and hurries out for assistance, meeting Vivian in the hall. He sends her to watch by the patient, while he hurries to the nearest druggist, in search of medicine.

“Oh, how did it happen?” Vivian cries pathetically, when he returns. She is down on her knees, chafing the unconscious Marie’s cold little hands. “She was here alone with Charlton a little while ago--quite well--quite happy!”

“I cannot tell you,” he answers hurriedly. “I met Charlton going out a moment since, and on entering I found her swooning. She seems to have received an unpleasant shock some way. It is her heart again.”

“Oh, do not tell me there is danger--that--that--” She chokes with a stifled sob, and lifts her large appealing eyes to the face of Doctor Verne. How dark, how soft, how lovely they are, shining on him through a mist of unshed tears. He notes this even while he answers sadly and gravely:

“I must admit there is cause for alarm. She will rally from this swoon, but she will suffer some pain through the day. It is possible she may be quite recovered by to-morrow or it may be--” He stops short, with a strange break in his voice, turning all his attention to the invalid--just in time, for she comes back to life and pain at this moment--sharp, agonizing pain that seems to rend her heart asunder.

She will not let them touch her to carry her to her room, so they bring pillows and shawls, and make her as comfortable as possible where she is. Doctor Verne stays all day, and is as gentle as a woman in his efforts to ease her pain. In the afternoon she falls asleep under the influence of a sedative--sleeps, and wakes at last free from pain, finding Vivian by her side and Doctor Verne at the window, watching little Charlie in his childish play on the grass-plot under the magnolia tree.

“You are better, darling,” Vivian cries, kissing her fondly.

Max comes over from the window, looking glad and eager.

They sit by her, beguiling the time with quiet converse, and then Viva asks the cause of her illness.

“It was the old subject, dear--the curse of wine,” Marie answers sadly. “We--that is, Charlton and I--were arguing on the subject, and both became excited. Then he went away, and I--oh, I could not bear it. I wanted him to give up drinking--but he would not promise--so we parted.” Her voice broke in a heavy sob, and she hid her convulsed face in the pillow.

“It was wicked in my brother to excite you so,” Vivian cried indignantly.

“He did not know, dear, as well as you do, how fatal to me would be the excitement I underwent. Do not blame him, dear. Tell him I forgave him.”

There was something strangely solemn in the fluttering voice. It pierced Vivian’s heart with a nameless fear, and she cried anxiously:

“After all, might you not have married Charlton and trusted to his high sense of honor to give up the habit we both deplore so much?”

The beautiful violet eyes turn to the speaker--their glances meet--the one tearful and troubled, the other sad and resolute.

“My dear, I am not afraid to go through life alone, I am not afraid to die now, if God will it so--but I am afraid to give my future into the care of one who loves strong drink better than he loves me.”

“Would to God all women felt that way,” Doctor Verne murmurs fervently.

“I am so tired of lying here. I should like to sit in the armchair at the window,” Marie whispers.

Doctor Verne carries her in his arms to the desired seat. She leans back wearily, the beams of the setting sun irradiating her pallid face with unearthly beauty.

“That is so much better,” she breathes softly; then suddenly taking a hand of each, as they hover by her chair, she places Vivian’s in that of Max, and holds both fast in her own.

Something in that act, in its sweet seriousness and silence, is too significant to be misunderstood. Doctor Verne gathers her meaning with a swift glow of consciousness, and after a moment speaks his heart aloud in a full voice, freighted with feeling.

“Vivian, darling, will you sanction our dear Marie’s gift?”

“Gladly,” Vivian murmurs, with her heart in her dark, upraised eyes; and bending down he solemnly kisses the fair face of his old love--his own again forever.

Just at that moment little Charlie runs in, bright and laughing, and puts a handful of roses in the invalid’s grasp, while he falls to pleading with his mother:

“Come out with me, dear mamma.”

“Yes, go, dear Viva,” Marie urges gently. “Go, and take Max with you. I want to be alone, to sleep a little while. I feel so weary.”

She seems so quiet, so easy, Doctor Verne agrees. He kisses her hand, Viva her lips, and then they go out on the porch together, leaving her alone and quiet as she wished, in the rays of the fading sunset.

“Max,” Viva says, blushing as she breathes the name so long a stranger to her lips, “go and bring Charlton back. Let him see her, and try to undo his work.”

He goes obediently, and Vivian waits in the sunset’s glow for their coming--waits with her heart divided between the suffering invalid and the dear lost lover given back to her heart, never to be estranged again.

How pale Charlton is when he comes, how pale and awe-stricken in the shadow of the blow they are dreading.

He clasps his sister’s hand in a pressure so close that it is painful.

“Viva,” he says repentantly, “I never dreamed it would hurt her like this. I did not dream how frail she was. Oh, but it may not be too late to undo my folly.”

“Let us go to her, Charlton,” his sister answers with a strangling sob.

She leads the way, and they cross the floor to the still, white form at the window, and look down at the quiet face.

She is sitting just as they left her, the dark head resting easily against the back of the cushioned chair, the eyes half-closed, the shadow of the long-fringed lashes lying on her cheek, a sweet, pathetic smile just parting the pale lips. Only the delicate fingers resting on her lap have relaxed their hold on little Charlie’s love offering, and the delicate buds have fallen unheeded at her feet. But in dropping those fragrant flowers Marie Orne had dropped from her clasp all the transitory things of life, like a child who wearies of its playthings, and, taking firm hold of the Divine Hand, had gone “across Death’s dim hills,” to that land where “there is no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither any more pain; for the former things have passed away.”

“Across the far blue hills, Marie,
I come, I pause, I look for thee.
I only find a mossed headstone,
A little legend graved thereon,
That tells me thou art gone from me
Across Death’s dim hills, love Marie.”