第68章 BOOK III:THE HEART OF MAN(21)

"I should like to see him.I should like him to answer the question I have just put you.I should rest easier and get well faster -or not get well at all."This latter he half whispered,and Doris,tripping from the room may not have heard it,for her face showed no further shadow as she ushered in Mr.Challoner,and closed the door behind him.She had looked forward to this moment for days.To Oswald,however,it was an unexpected excitement and his voice trembled with something more than physical weakness as he greeted his visitor and thanked him for his attentions.

"Doris says that you have shown me this kindness from the desire you have to see me well again Mr.Challoner.Is this true?""Very true.I cannot emphasise the fact too strongly."Oswald's eyes met his again,this time with great earnestness.

"You must have serious reasons for feeling so -reasons which I do not quite understand.May I ask why you place such value upon a life which,if ever useful to itself or others,has lost and lost forever,the one delight which gave it meaning?"It was for Mr.Challoner's voice to tremble now,as reaching out his hand,he declared,with unmistakable feeling:

"I have no son.I have no interest left in life,outside this room and the possibilities it contains for me.Your attachment to my daughter has created a bond between us,Mr.Brotherson,which Isincerely hope to see recognised by you."

Startled and deeply moved,the young man stretched out a shaking hand towards his visitor,with the feeble but exulting cry:

"Then you do not blame me for her wretched and mysterious death.

You hold me guiltless of the misery which nerved her despairing arm?""Quite guiltless."

Oswald's wan and pinched features took on a beautiful expression and Mr.Challoner no longer wondered at his daughter's choice.

"Thank God!"fell from the sick man's lips,and then there was a silence during which their two hands met.

It was some minutes before either spoke and then it was Oswald who said:

"I must confide to you certain facts.I honoured your daughter and realised her position fully.Our plight was never made in words,nor should I have presumed to advance any claim to her hand if I had not made good my expectations,Mr.Challoner.I meant to win both her regard and yours by acts,not words.I felt that Ihad a great deal to do and I was prepared to work and wait.I loved her -"He turned away his head and the silence which filled up the gap,united those two hearts,as the old and young are seldom united.

But when a little later,Mr.Challoner rejoined Doris,in her little sitting-room,he nevertheless showed a perplexity she had hoped to see removed by this understanding with the younger Brotherson.

The cause became apparent as soon as he spoke.

"These brothers hold by each other,"said he."Oswald will hear nothing against Orlando.He says that he has redeemed his fault.

He does not even protest that his brother's word is to be believed in this matter.He does not seem to think that necessary.He evidently regards Orlando's personality as speaking as truly and satisfactorily for itself,as his own does.And I dared not undeceive him.""He does not know all our reasons for distrust.He has heard nothing about the poor washerwoman.""No,and he must not,-not for weeks.He has borne all that he can.""His confidence in his older brother is sublime.I do not share it;but I cannot help but respect him for it."

It was warmly said,and Mr.Challoner could not forbear casting an anxious look at her upturned face.What he saw there made him turn away with a sigh.

"This confidence has for me a very unhappy side,"he remarked."It shows me Oswald's thought.He who loved her best,accepts the cruel verdict of an unreasoning public."Doris'large eyes burned with a weird light upon his face.

"He has not had my dream,"she murmured,with all the quiet of an unmoved conviction.

Yet as the days went by,even her manner changed towards the busy inventor.It was hardly possible for it not to.The high stand he took;the regard accorded him on every side;his talent;his conversation,which was an education in itself,and,above all,his absorption in a work daily advancing towards completion,removed him so insensibly and yet so decidedly,from the hideous past of tragedy with which his name,if not his honour,was associated,that,unconsciously to herself,she gradually lost her icy air of repulsion and lent him a more or less attentive ear,when he chose to join their small company of an evening.The result was that he turned so bright a side upon her that toleration merged from day to day into admiration and memory lost itself in anticipation of the event which was to prove him a man of men,if not one of the world's greatest mechanical geniuses.

Meantime,Oswald was steadily improving in health,if not in spirits.

He had taken his first walk without any unfavourable results,and Orlando decided from this that the time had come for an explanation of his device and his requirements in regard to it.Seated together in Oswald's room,he broached the subject thus:

"Oswald,what is your idea about what I'm making up there?""That it will be a success."

"I know;but its character,its use?What do you think it is?""I've an idea;but my idea don't fit the conditions.""How's that?"

"The shed is too closely hemmed in.You haven't room -""For what?"

"To start an aeroplane."

"Yet it is certainly a device for flying."

"I supposed so;but -"

"It is an air-car with a new and valuable idea -the idea for which the whole world has been seeking ever since the first aeroplane found its way up from the earth.My car needs no room to start in save that which it occupies.If it did,it would be but the modification of a hundred others.""Orlando!"

As Oswald thus gave expression to his surprise,their two faces were a study:the fire of genius in the one;the light of sympathetic understanding in the other.