Chapter 6

"Who redeemeth thy life from destruction."

"Strike--for your altars and your fires;
Strike--for the green graves of your sires;
God, and your native land!"

The hours that followed were full of suffering to the heart. John came
back with the doctors he summoned, and during their investigation he
walked restlessly up and down the room in which the tragedy had
occurred. Richard never noticed him. He sat in a chair by the open
window, with his head in his hands, quite overcome by grief and
remorse. It was in John's strong arms Phyllis had been carried to her
own room, and no one now disputed his right to watch and to wait for
the doctors' verdict. He was very white; white through all the tan
of wind and sun; and, as he paced the room, he wrung his hands in an
agony beyond speech. Terrible, indeed, to both men was the silent
house, with the faint noises of hurried footsteps and closing doors up
stairs! What a mockery seemed the cool, clear sunshine outside! What a
strange sadness there was in the call of the crickets, and the faint
blooms of the last few flowers! There are scenes and sounds which, as
backgrounds to great events in life, photograph themselves in their
smallest details upon the mind. In the midst of his distress John could
not help noticing the pattern of the wall-paper, and the rustling of
the dropping leaves and nuts in the garden.

He pitied Richard; for, even in the depth of his own sorrow, he
perceived a grief he could not touch--the anguish of a remorse which
might have no end in this life. As the doctors came down stairs John
went to meet them, for even a minute's reprieve from his torturing
anxiety was worth going for. The foremost made a slight movement, a
motion of the lips and eyes which somehow conveyed a hope, and when
he heard the words, "She may recover," he hastened back to Richard,
and said, "There is a hope for her, and for us. God forgive us!"

Richard never answered a word, and John wandered for hours upon the
beach, gazing at the gray melancholy sea, and trying to understand
how far he had been to blame. Perhaps it is in the want of pity that
the real _infernal_ of Satan consists; for whenever he sees us
overwhelmed with sorrow, then he casts into our throbbing heart his
fiercest weapons. Doubt, anguish, and prostration of hope, worse than
death, assailed him. He tried to pray, but felt as if his cries were
uttered to an inexorable silence.

As for Richard, he was so mentally stunned that it was not until he
had been taken to Phyllis, and she had whispered, "I shall be better
soon, Richard," that a saving reaction could be induced. Then the
_abandon_ of his grief was terrible; then he felt something of