The Testing of Diana Mallory by Mrs. Humphry Ward (dark books to read txt) 📕

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She saw that he was not asleep, and she went and knelt down beside him.

"Oliver, darling!"

He passed his hand over her hair.

"I have been waiting for you--it is our wedding night."

She hid her face against him.

"Oh! you angel!" he murmured to her--"angel of consolation! When I am gone, say to yourself: 'I drew him out of the pit, and helped him to die'; say 'he suffered, and I forgave him everything'; say 'he was my husband, and I carried him on my heart--so.'" He moved toward her. She put her arms under his head and drew him to her breast, stooping over him and kissing him.

So the first part of the night went by, he very much under the influence of morphia and not in pain; murmured words passing at intervals between them, the outward signs of an inward and ineffable bond. Often, as she sat motionless beside him, the thought of her mother stirred in her heart--father, mother, husband--close, close all of them--"closer than hands and feet"--one with her and one with God.

About two o'clock she gave him the new drug, he piteously consenting for her sake. Then in a mortal terror she resumed her place beside him. In a few minutes surely the pain, the leaping hungry pain would be upon him, and she must see him wrestle with it defenceless. She sat holding her breath, all existence gathered into fear.

But the minutes passed. She felt the tension of his hand relax. He went to sleep so gently that in her infinite relief she too dropped into sleep, her head beside his, the black hair mingling with the gray on the same pillow.

The servant coming in, as he had been told, looked at them in astonishment, and stole away again.

An hour or so later Oliver woke.

"I have had no morphia, and I am not in pain. My God! what does it mean?"

Trembling, he put out his hand. Yes!--Diana was there--asleep in her chair. His _wife_!

His touch roused her, and as she bent over him he saw her dimly in the dim light--her black hair, her white dress.

"You can bring that old French fellow here whenever you like," he said, holding her. Then, faintly, his eyes closed: "This is New Year's Day."

Once more Diana's kisses fell "on the tired heart like rain"; and when she left him he lay still, wrapped in a tangle of thought which his weakness could not unravel. Presently he dropped again into sleep.

Diana too slept, the sleep of a young exhaustion; and when she woke up, it was to find her being flooded with an upholding, enkindling joy, she knew not how or whence. She threw open the window to the frosty dawn, thinking of the year before and her first arrival at Beechcote. And there, in the eastern sky--no radiant planet--but a twinkling star, in an ethereal blue; and from the valley below, dim joyous sounds of bells.


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Publication Date: 09-10-2009

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Dedication:
TO MY KIND HOSTS BEYOND THE ATLANTIC FROM A GRATEFUL TRAVELLER JULY, 1908