第88章

"Yes, you do, Barney. Oh, thank you, darling." She wreathed her arms about his neck and laid her head upon his breast. "Oh!" she said with a deep sigh, "I shall rest now--rest--rest. That's what I've been longing for. I could not rest, Barney."

Barney shuddered. Only too well he knew the meaning of that fateful restlessness, but he only held her closer to him, his heart filled with a fierce refusal of his lot.

"There is no one like you, Barney, after all," she murmured, nestling down with a delicious sigh of content. "You are so strong. You will make me strong, I know. I feel stronger already, stronger than for months."

Again Barney shuddered at that cruel deception, so characteristic of the treacherous disease.

"Why don't you speak to me, Barney? You haven't said a word except just 'Iola, Iola, Iola.' Haven't you anything else to say, sir?

After your long silence you might--" She raised her head and looked into his eyes with her old saucy smile.

"There is nothing to say, Iola. What need to speak when I can hold you like this? But you must not talk too much."

"Tell me something about yourself," she cried. "What? Where?

How? Why? No, not why. I don't want that, but all the rest."

"It is hardly worth while, Iola," he replied, "and it would take a long time."

"Oh, yes, think what a delicious long time. All the time there is.

All the day and every day. Oh, Barney! does one want more Heaven than this? Tell me about Margaret and--yes--and Dick," she shyly added. "Are they well and happy?"

"Now, darling," said Barney, stroking her hair; "just rest there and I'll tell you everything. But you must not exhaust yourself."

"Go on then, Barney," she replied with a sigh of ineffable bliss, nestling down again. "Oh, lovely rest!"

Then Barney told her of Margaret and Dick and of their last few days together, making light of Dick's injury and making much of the new joy that had come to them all. "And it was your letter that did it all, Iola," he said.

"No," she replied gently, "it was our Father's goodness. I see things so differently, Barney. Lady Ruthven has taught me. She is an angel from Heaven, and, oh, what she has done for me!"

"I, too, Iola, have great things to be thankful for."

A tap came to the door and, in response to their invitation, Lady Ruthven, with Jack in the background, appeared.

"Dinner will be served in a few minutes, Iola, and I am sure Dr.

Boyle would like to go to his room. You can spare him, I suppose?"

"No, I can't spare him, but I will if you let me go down to-night to dinner."

"Is it wise, do you think?" said Lady Ruthven gravely. "You must save your strength now, you know."

"Oh, but I am strong. Just for to-night," she pleaded. "I'm not going to be an invalid to-night. I'm going to forget all about it.

I am going to eat a good dinner and I'm going to sing, too. Jack, tell them I can go down. Barney, you will take me down. You may carry me, if you like. I am going, Jack," she continued with something of her old imperious air.

Barney searched her face with a critical glance, holding his fingers upon her wrist. She was growing excited. "Well, I think she might go down for a little. What do you think, Charrington?

You know best."

"If she is good she might," said Jack doubtfully. "But she must promise to be quiet."

"Jack, you're a dear. You're an angel. I'll be good--as good as I can." With which extremely doubtful promise they had to content themselves.

At dinner none was more radiant that Iola. Without effort or strain her wit and gaiety bubbled over, till Barney, watching her in wonder, asked himself whether in his first impression of her he had not been mistaken. As he still watched and listened his wonder grew. How brilliantly clever she was! How quick her wit! How exquisitely subtle her fancy! Her mind, glowing like a live coal, seemed to kindle by mere contact the minds about her, till the whole table, catching her fire, scintillated with imagination's divine flame. Through it all Barney became conscious of a change in her. She was brighter than of old, cleverer by far. Her conversation was that of a highly cultured woman of the world. But it was not these that made the change. There was a new quality of soul in her. Patience had wrought her perfect work. She exhaled that exquisite aroma of the spirit disciplined by pain. She was less of the earth, earthy. The airs of Heaven were breathing about her.

To Barney, with his new sensitiveness to the spiritual, this change in Iola made her inexpressibly dear. It seemed as if he had met her in a new and better country where neither had seen the other before. And yet it filled him with an odd sense of loss. It was as if earth were losing its claim in her, as if her earthward affinities were refining into the heavenly. She was keenly interested in the story of Dick's work and, in spite of his reluctance to talk, she so managed the conversation, that, before he was aware, Barney was in the full tide of the thrilling tale of his brother's heroic service to the men in the mountains of Western Canada. As Barney waxed eloquent, picturing the perils and privations, the discouragements and defeats, the toils and triumphs of missionary life, the lustrous eyes grew luminous with deep inner light, the beautiful face, its ivory pallor relieved by a touch of carmine upon lip and cheek, appeared to shed a very radiance of glory that drew and held the gaze of the whole company.

"Oh, what splendid work!" she cried. "How good to be a man! But it's better," she added, with a quick glance at Barney and a little shy laugh, "to be a woman."

It was the anxiety in Charrington's eyes that arrested Lady Ruthven's attention and made her bring the dinner somewhat abruptly to a close.

"Oh, Lady Ruthven, must we go?" cried Iola, as her hostess made a move to rise. "What a delightful dinner we have had! Now you are not going to send me away just yet. 'After dinner sit a while,' you know, and I believe I feel like singing to-night."

"My dear, my dear," said Lady Ruthven, "do you think you should exert yourself any more? You have had an exciting day. What does your doctor say?"