was only a dream," he said excitedly, "nothing but a dream. You must not look like that. I cannot bear you to look like that. It is more than I can bear. You must forget about it, and we will begin all over again to-morrow. I never said those things to you – thank Heaven, I never said them to you – it was only a dream – your dream – and my dream."
He could have bitten his tongue out after he had said those last words.
"Your dream?" she cried, with a ring of despair in her voice.
"Marianne," he said, gathering himself, and all the best in himself, together for victory over his temperament and hers – "oh, Marianne, we are not to be held responsible for our dreams. You know how it is with our restless, wayward fancies: one little passing discord in real life becomes magnified and expanded into an immense orchestra of discordant strains in that dream-life over which we seem to have no control. Don't you understand – can't you understand?"
"You dreamed it," she said slowly, "and it was so vivid to you that it broke through all barriers and reached me in my dream. It must have been born of your inmost thoughts, bred up and strengthened through these long years of our misunderstandings, until it reached its full maturity. We should indeed each have gone a separate way long ago. But it is not too late even now."
"Not too late to find the key to each other even now," he said. "Let us try to do it. Where others have failed, let us make a triumph. It is not our hearts which are at war, Marianne: our hearts mean well to each other. It is our temperaments which cause all the strife."
"We can make no triumph," she answered. "I have ruined your life, murdered your spirit, crushed out the best in you."
"It was a dream," he cried passionately. "Let it go the way of all dreams."
She shook her head.
"We must part to-morrow," she said, "and to-morrow will be the day of your re-birth."
"You stab me with your words," he said, as he passed, with head bowed, to the door.
"And you stab me with your dreams," she replied.
"We are both very unhappy," he said, as he paused on the threshold.
"Yes," she said, "very unhappy."
And she closed her door.
He stood alone on the landing. There was not a sound to be heard within the house or without. It was a still September night, so that even the branches of the trees were not moved in music. The harvest moon shone in coldly. The world seemed lonely to that lonely man.
"What a failure I have made of everything," he said to himself – "even of my silence."
He longed for some kind word, for some arresting glance of sympathy; but life could yield nothing to him in his moment of need. He thought of his boy whom he loved with all his heart, and he remembered only that he had deliberately made the lad suffer. He forgot all the years of intimate companionship which they two had enjoyed together, all the secret understanding so precious to both of them. These memories, which might have comforted him, and eloquently too, were silent; and because he was gentle and generous-hearted, he had to pay the uttermost price for the emotions which were the finest in his nature. He remembered only that he had wounded Marianne, hurt her to the quick, and that if he got his liberty – after fifteen years of bondage – he would be even as a released prisoner to whom the sweets of freedom had become distasteful.
He went mechanically down the stairs, let himself out of the hall-door, and stole round to the stables. Bully, the bull-terrier, knew his master's footstep, and, as a welcome, beat his tail against his kennel. Jinny, the brown mare, was asleep at the time; but she woke up and neighed softly when she heard her master's voice, and was eager enough to be saddled for a midnight ride. It was not the first time that she had been called upon to sacrifice her own slumbers to his restlessness. Many a time she and he had ridden out into the darkness and the tempest and the moonlight of the night.
When he came back again, it was nearly five o'clock. Worn out in body and spirit, he flung himself on his bed, fell asleep, and only awoke to the sound of some commotion in the house, and cries of "Father, father." He sprang up, opened the door, and found Alan outside.
"Father," he cried. "Mother – "
Clifford Thornton saw the look of alarm on his boy's face, and rushed to Marianne's room. The door stood open. Marianne was leaning back in the arm-chair – dead.
CHAPTER III
There was, of course, an inquest, and then poor Marianne Thornton was laid to rest in the little Surrey churchyard five miles from "Falun." The verdict was death from sudden failure of the heart's action, due probably to some shock, the exact nature of which was unknown.
"She must have had some shock, some great fright," Dr Aldborough deposed. "The expression on her face was that of excessive alarm. It may have been a dream – I have met with three such curious instances in my experience. Moreover, it was known to us all that Mrs Thornton was suffering from valvular disease of the heart. She had only lately been consulting a new heart-specialist."
"It was a dream," Clifford Thornton stated, "and she called to me, and I found her with that same expression of alarm on her face, and I tried to calm her and failed. And feeling heavy of heart, I saddled my horse and went riding."
"And the nature of the dream?" he was asked.
He shook his head.
"I do not know," he said. "I only know it was a dream."
He had made up his mind to keep that secret, chiefly for Alan's sake. He felt that he had already injured the boy, and no word of his should now add to the heavy burden of hastened knowledge.
"If I began to speak of it," he said to himself, "I should go on to tell him that I had killed her – and in time he would believe it – even as I do."
That was the torturing thought which at once began to assail him, although he fought it with all the weapons of reason and common-sense. He fought it even at the side of the grave, his impenetrable face showing no sign of the mental torture which he was enduring unhelped by any one. But when they came back to "Falun" after the funeral, he put his hands on Alan's shoulders and said sorrowfully:
"Alan, I would give my right hand, and the sight of my eyes, and the strength of my brain, if only I could unsay what I said to you the other day about your mother."
"Oh, father," the boy answered, in a paroxysm of grief, "perhaps we did not love her enough."
He broke off there, and they did not speak together further, both being of painfully reserved natures; but each wrung the other's hand silently, in token of closer friendship, and throughout that sad day they did not leave each other's side. The doctor called in during the afternoon, and found them in the study sitting close together and trying to interest themselves in a new book on architecture, which was Alan's beloved subject, and for which he had undoubted talent. They looked so desolate and pathetic that Dr Aldborough, who had always been attracted to this reserved man and his son, was concerned for their welfare. He offered no un-timely word of comfort or cheer, but he said to them:
"Come out with me. It is a splendid afternoon. I have to drive over to Midhurst, and the air will do you both good. You will sleep better. And Alan shall handle the greys, whilst we smoke."
The boy brightened up at once.
"Let us go, father," he said, a little eagerly.
"You
