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Title: The Prayer Author: Violet Hunt * A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook * eBook No.: 0605871h.html Language: English Date first posted: August 2006 Date most recently updated: August 2006 This eBook was produced by: Richard Scott Project Gutenberg of Australia eBooks are created from printed editions which are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright notice is included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particular paper edition. Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this file. This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg of Australia License which may be viewed online at http://gutenberg.net.au/licence.html To contact Project Gutenberg of Australia go to http://gutenberg.net.auGO TO Project Gutenberg of Australia HOME PAGE
'It is but giving over of a game. That must be lost.'--PHILASTER'Come, Mrs Arne--come, my dear, you must not give way like this! You can't stand it--you really can't! Let Miss Kate take you away--now do!' urged the nurse, with her most motherly of intonations. 'Yes, Alice, Mrs Joyce is right. Come away--do come away--you are only making yourself ill. It is all over; you can do nothing! Oh, oh, do come away!' implored Mrs Arne's sister, shivering with excitement and nervousness. A few moments ago Dr Graham had relinquished his hold on the pulse of Edward Arne with the hopeless movement of the eyebrows that meant--the end. The nurse had made the little gesture of resignation that was possibly a matter of form with her. The young sister-in-law had hidden her face in her hands. The wife had screamed a scream that had turned them all hot and cold--and flung herself on the bed over her dead husband. There she lay; her cries were terrible, her sobs shook her whole body. The three gazed at her pityingly, not knowing what to do next. The nurse, folding her hands, looked towards the doctor for directions, and the doctor drummed with his fingers on the bed-post. The young girl timidly stroked the shoulder that heaved and writhed under her touch. 'Go away! Go away!' her sister reiterated continually, in a voice hoarse with fatigue and passion. 'Leave her alone, Miss Kate,' whispered the nurse at last; 'she will work it off best herself, perhaps.' She turned down the lamp as if to draw a veil over the scene. Mrs Arne raised herself on her elbow, showing a face stained with tears and purple with emotion. 'What! Not gone?' she said harshly. 'Go away, Kate, go away! It is my house. I don't want you, I want no one--I want to speak to my husband. Will you go away--all of you. Give me an hour, half-an-hour--five minutes!' She stretched out her arms imploringly to the doctor. 'Well...' said he, almost to himself. He signed to the two women to withdraw, and followed them out into the passage. 'Go and get something to eat,' he said peremptorily, 'while you can. We shall have trouble with her presently. I'll wait in the dressing-room.' He glanced at the twisting figure on the bed, shrugged his shoulders, and passed into the adjoining room, without, however, closing the door of communication. Sitting down in an arm-chair drawn up to the fire, he stretched himself and closed his eyes. The professional aspects of the case of Edward Arne rose up before him in all its interesting forms of complication... It was just this professional attitude that Mrs Arne unconsciously resented both in the doctor and in the nurse. Through all their kindness she had realised and resented their scientific interest in her husband, for to them he had been no more than a curious and complicated case; and now that.the blow had fallen, she regarded them both in the light of executioners. Her one desire, expressed with all the shameless sincerity of blind and thoughtless misery, was to be free of their hateful presence and alone--alone with her dead! She was weary of the doctor's subdued manly tones--of the nurse's commonplace motherliness, too habitually adapted to the needs of all to be appreciated by the individual--of the childish consolation of the young sister, who had never loved, never been married, did not know what sorrow was! Their expressions of sympathy struck her like blows, the touch of their hands on her body, as they tried to raise her, stung her in every nerve. With a sigh of relief she buried her head in the pillow, pressed her body more closely against that of her husband, and lay motionless. Her sobs ceased. The lamp went out with a gurgle. The fire leaped up, and died. She raised her head and stared about her helplessly, then sinking down again she put her lips to the ear of the dead man. 'Edward--dear Edward!' she whispered, 'why have you left me? Darling, why have you left me? I can't stay behind--you know I can't. I am too young to be left. It is only a year since you married me. I never thought it was only for a year. "Till death us do part"' Yes, I know that's in it, but nobody ever thinks of that! I never thought of living without you! I meant to die with you... 'No--no--I can't die--I must not--till my baby is born, You will never see it. Don't you want to see it? Don't you? Oh, Edward, speak! Say something, darling, one word--one little word! Edward! Edward! are you there? Answer me for God's sake, answer me! 'Darling, I am so tired of waiting. Oh, think, dearest. There is so little time. They only gave me half-an-hour. In half-an-hour they will come and take you away from me--take you where I can't come to you--with all my love I can't come to you! I know the place--I saw it once. A great lonely place full of graves, and little stunted trees dripping with dirty London rain...and gas-lamps flaring all round...but quite, quite dark where the grave is . . a long grey stone just like the rest. How could you stay there?--all alone--all alone--without me? 'Do you remember, Edward, what we once said--that whichever of us died first should come back to watch over the other, in the spirit? I promised you, and you promised me. What children we were! Death is not what we thought. It comforted us to say that then. 'Now, it's nothing--nothing--worse than nothing---don't want your spirit--I can't see it--or feel it--I want you, you, your eyes that looked at me, your mouth that kissed me--' She raised his arms and clasped them round her neck, and lay there very still, murmuring, 'Oh, hold me, hold me! Love me if you can. Am I hateful? This is me! These are your arms... The doctor in the next room moved in his chair. The noise awoke her from her dream of contentment, and she unwound the dead arm from her neck, and, holding it up by the wrist, considered it ruefully. 'Yes, I can put it round me, but I have to hold it there. It is quite cold--it doesn't care. Ah, my dear, you don't care! You are dead. I kiss you, but you don't kiss me. Edward! Edward! Oh, for heaven's sake kiss me once. Just once! 'No, no, that won't do--that's not enough! that's nothing! worse than nothing! I want you back, you, all you...What shall I do?...I often pray...Oh, if there be a God in heaven, and if He ever answered a prayer, let Him answer mine--my only prayer. I'll never ask another--and give you back to me! As you were--as I loved you--as I adored you! He must listen. He must! My God, my God, he's mine--he's my husband, he's my lover--give him back to me!' 'Left alone for half-an-hour or more with the corpse! It's not right!' The muttered expression of the nurse's revolted sense of professional decency came from the head of the staircase, where she had been waiting for the last few minutes. The doctor joined her. 'Hush, Mrs Joyce! I'll go to her now.' The door creaked on its hinges as he gently pushed it open and went in. 'What's that? What's that?' screamed Mrs Arne. 'Doctor! Doctor! Don't touch me! Either I am dead or he is alive!' 'Do you want to kill yourself, Mrs Arne?' said Dr Graham, with calculated sternness, coming forward; 'come away!' 'Not dead! Not dead!' she murmured. 'He is dead, I assure you. Dead and cold an hour ago! Feel!' He took hold of her, as she lay face downwards, and in so doing he touched the dead man's cheek--it was not cold! Instinctively his finger sought a pulse. 'Stop' Wait!' he cried in his intense excitement. 'My dear Mrs Arne, control yourself!' But Mrs Arne had fainted, and fallen heavily off the bed on the other side. Her sister, hastily summoned, attended to her, while the man they had all given over for dead was, with faint gasps and sighs and reluctant moans, pulled, as it were, hustled and dragged back over the threshold of life.