Two on a Tower - Page 33/147

Lady Constantine said, 'Hush!' and pointed inquiringly upward.

'He is not overhead, my lady,' replied Swithin's grandmother. 'His

bedroom is at the back of the house.' 'How is he now?' 'He is better, just at this moment; and we are more hopeful. But he

changes so.' 'May I go up? I know he would like to see me.' Her presence having been made known to the sufferer, she was conducted

upstairs to Swithin's room. The way thither was through the large

chamber he had used as a study and for the manufacture of optical

instruments. There lay the large pasteboard telescope, that had been

just such a failure as Crusoe's large boat; there were his diagrams,

maps, globes, and celestial apparatus of various sorts. The absence of

the worker, through illness or death is sufficient to touch the prosiest

workshop and tools with the hues of pathos, and it was with a swelling

bosom that Lady Constantine passed through this arena of his youthful

activities to the little chamber where he lay.

Old Mrs. Martin sat down by the window, and Lady Constantine bent over

Swithin.

'Don't speak to me!' she whispered. 'It will weaken you; it will excite

you. If you do speak, it must be very softly.' She took his hand, and one irrepressible tear fell upon it.

'Nothing will excite me now, Lady Constantine,' he said; 'not even your

goodness in coming. My last excitement was when I lost the battle. . .

Do you know that my discovery has been forestalled? It is that that's

killing me.' 'But you are going to recover; you are better, they say. Is it so?' 'I think I am, to-day. But who can be sure?' 'The poor boy was so upset at finding that his labour had been thrown

away,' said his grandmother, 'that he lay down in the rain, and chilled

his life out.' 'How could you do it?' Lady Constantine whispered. 'O, how could you

think so much of renown, and so little of me? Why, for every discovery

made there are ten behind that await making. To commit suicide like

this, as if there were nobody in the world to care for you!' 'It was done in my haste, and I am very, very sorry for it! I beg both

you and all my few friends never, never to forgive me! It would kill me

with self-reproach if you were to pardon my rashness!' At this moment the doctor was announced, and Mrs. Martin went downstairs

to receive him. Lady Constantine thought she would remain to hear his

report, and for this purpose withdrew, and sat down in a nook of the

adjoining work-room of Swithin, the doctor meeting her as he passed

through it into the sick chamber.