The Infidel: A Story of the Great Revival

She thought his mind was wandering. He had lifted himself from her arms, and was sitting up in bed, magnetized into new life by the intensity of his purpose.

"Ring that bell, dearest. Yes" – as she took up the handbell on his table – "all has been arranged. Death will be civil to the last Baron Kilrush, and will give me time for what I have to do."

His valet appeared at the door.

"Is his lordship's chaplain there?" Kilrush asked.

"Yes, my lord. The bishop has come with his chaplain."

"The bishop! My old friend is monstrous obliging. Show them in."

The valet ushered in a stately personage in full canonicals, accompanied by a young man in surplice and hood. The bishop came to the bedside, saluted Antonia courteously, and bent his portly form over Kilrush with an affectionate air.

"My dear friend, on so solemn an occasion I could not delegate my duty to another."

"You are very good. We are ready for you. My lawyer is in the next room – he has the license; and this" – pointing to a thin gold hoop worn with an antique intaglio ring on his little finger – "this was my mother's wedding ring – it will serve."

The bishop took the Prayer-book which his chaplain had opened at the Marriage Service, but paused with the book in his hand, looking at Antonia with a grave curiosity. Kilrush followed the look, and answered it as if it had been a question.

"You understand, bishop, that this marriage is not an atonement," he said. "Miss Antonia Thornton is a lady of spotless reputation, who will do honour to the name I leave her."

"That is well, Kilrush. But I hope this marriage is not designed to injure any one belonging to you."

"No, I injure no one, for no one has any claim to be my heir."

The valet brought the candles from the further end of the room to a table near the bishop, and rearranged the pillows at his master's back. Antonia had risen from her seat on the edge of the bed, and stood watching Kilrush with the candlelight full upon her face.

The bishop looked at her with a shrewd scrutiny. He wanted to know what manner of woman she was, and what could be his old friend's motive for this death-bed folly. They had been at Eton and Oxford together; and though their paths had lain asunder since those early years, the bishop knew what kind of life Kilrush had led, and was disinclined to credit him with chivalrous or romantic impulses. He looked to the woman for the answer to the enigma. An artful adventuress, no doubt, who had worked upon the weaker will of a dying man. He scrutinized her with the keen glance of a man accustomed to read the secrets of the heart in the countenance, and his penetration was baffled by the tragic beauty of her face, as she gazed at Kilrush, with eyes which seemed incapable of seeing anything but him. He thought that no adventuress could conjure up that look of despairing love, that unconsciousness of external things, that supreme indifference to a ceremony which was to give her wealth and station for the rest of her life, indifference even to that episcopal dignity of purple and lawn which had rarely failed in its influence upon woman.

"Make your ceremony as brief as you can, bishop," said Kilrush. "I have something to say to my wife when 'tis over. Louis, call Mr. Thornton and Mr. Pegloss."

The valet opened the door, and admitted Thornton and the lawyer. The apothecary followed them, took up his position by his patient's pillow, and gave him a restorative draught.

The bishop began to read in his great deep voice – a voice which must have ensured a bishopric, but diminished from the thunder of his cathedral tones to a grave baritone, musical as the soughing of distant waves. The windows were open, and through the sultry air there came the cry of the watchman calling the hour, far off and at measured intervals —

"Past ten o'clock, and a cloudy night."

Tonia stood by the bed, holding her lover's hand.

"Who giveth this woman, etc."

Thornton was ready, trembling with excitement, dazed by the wonder of it all, and scarcely able to speak; and Tonia's voice was choked with tears when she made the bride's replies, slowly, stumblingly, prompted by the chaplain. The ceremony had no significance for her, except as a dying man's whim. Her only thought was of him. She could see his face more distinctly now, in the nearer light of the candles, and the awful change smote her heart with a pain she had never felt before. It was death, the dreadful, the inevitable, the end of all things. What meaning could marriage have in such an hour as this?

The chaplain read a final prayer. The ring had been put on. The marriage was complete.

The bishop knelt by the table, and began to read the prayers for the sick, Tonia standing by the bed, with Kilrush's hand in hers, heedless of the solemn voice. The bishop looked up at her in a shocked astonishment.

"It would be more becoming, madam, to kneel," he said in a loud whisper.

She sank on her knees beside the bed, and listened to the prayer that seemed to mock her with its supplications for health and healing, while Death, a palpable presence, hovered over the bed. To Antonia that ineffectual prayer seemed the last sentence – the sentence of doom.

"You are vastly civil, bishop," said Kilrush, opening his eyelids after one of his transient slumbers. "And now let Mr. Pegloss bring me the paper I have to sign."

The attorney came to the bedside on the instant, carrying a blotting-book which he arranged deftly, with a closely written sheet of foolscap spread upon it, in front of Kilrush, who had been raised again into a sitting position by the doctor and valet.

"This is my will, bishop," said Kilrush, as he wrote his name. "You and your chaplain can witness it. 'Twill give an odour of sanctity to my last act."

"Your lordship may command my services," said the bishop, taking the pen from his friend's hand.

It was something of a shock to have this service asked of him. A few hours ago there had been nothing he expected less than a legacy from his old schoolfellow; but after having been asked to send his chaplain to solemnize a death-bed marriage, after being as it were appealed to on the score of early friendship, and after having so cordially responded, it seemed to his episcopal mind that among the accumulated treasures of art which poor Kilrush was about to surrender, some small memento, were it but a diamond snuff-box, or an enamelled watch – should have come to him.

He wrote his stately signature with a flourish; the chaplain following.

Kilrush sank back among his pillows, supported by the arms he loved.

"Bishop, you are a connoisseur," he said, in his faint voice, looking up shrewdly at his schoolfellow's ample countenance, rosy with the rich hues of the Côte d'or. "That Raffaelle over the chimney-piece – 'tis a replica of the Sposalizia at Milan. Some critics pronounce it the finer picture. Let it be a souvenir of your obliging goodness to-night. Louis, you will see the Raffaelle conveyed to his lordship's house immediately. Mr. Pegloss will assist you to take the picture down. And now good-night to you all."

"My dear Kilrush, you overpower me," murmured the bishop; and then he bent over the invalid, and whispered a solemn inquiry.

"No, no; I am not in a fit state of mind," Kilrush answered fretfully. "And my wife is not a believer."

"Not a believer!"

His lordship's eyebrows were elevated in unspeakable horror. He glanced with something of aversion at the lovely face hanging over the dying man with looks of all absorbing love. Not a believer! He would scarcely have been more horrified had she been a disciple of Wesley or Whitefield.

"My dear friend," he murmured, "'tis my bounden duty to urge – "

"Come to me to-morrow morning, bishop."

"Let it be so, then. At eight o'clock to-morrow morning."

"A rivederci," said Kilrush, with a mocking smile, waving an attenuated hand, as the churchman and his satellite withdrew.

Thornton and the lawyer followed, but only to the ante-room. The apothecary and valet remained. The physician had paid his last visit before Antonia arrived. There had been a consultation of three great men in the afternoon, and it had been decided that nothing more could be done for the patient than to make him as comfortable as his malady would permit, and for that the apothecary's art was sufficient.

"You can wait in the next room, Davis, within call," said Kilrush, as the grave elderly man, in a queer little chestnut wig, bent over him, looking anxiously in his face, and feeling his pulse.

The throb of life beat stronger than Davis had anticipated. A wonderful constitution that could so hold out against the ravages of disease! The breathing was laboured, but there was vigour enough left to last out the long night hours – to last for days and nights yet, the medico thought, as he left the room.

The valet was moving the candles from the table by the bed, when his master stopped him.

"Leave them there: I want to see my wife's face," he said.

The man obeyed, and followed the apothecary.

Husband and wife were alone.

"On your knees, Tonia – so, with your face towards the light," Kilrush said eagerly. "So, so, love. I want to see your eyes. You are my wife, Tonia, my wife for ever – in life and after life. This perishing clay will be hidden from your sight to-morrow —this Kilrush will cease to be – but – " striking his breast passionately, "there is something here that will live – the mind of the man who loved you – and who dies despairing – the martyr of his insensate pride."