University of Virginia Library

10. CHAPTER X.
DUST AND ASHES.

Did the tender lips which Heaven had sent Elizabeth
to “drain her sorrow dry,” draw from her the passionate
despair, the torturing unrest, of her mood at this
time? I have sometimes thought so.

While she was happy, the little one had grown and
flourished, — been a radiant incarnation of joy and delight.
Now, in these days when it seemed to the mother
as if all God's billows were passing over her, the child
began to droop. She was never like herself again after
Dr. Erskine went away. At first Madame Ponsard
said, laughingly, that the little angel missed the doctor.
But after a few days neither she nor any one else
laughed when they spoke of the baby.

From morning till night Elizabeth held the little
creature in her arms, watching the dark, questioning
eyes, fondling the thin, transparent fingers, kissing the
flushed yet wasting cheeks.

“Oh, if Dr. Erskine would but come back!” was all
the time the burden of her longing. He had saved that
little life once, — surely it must be, she thought, that
he could save it again. For herself no matter. She
knew now how easy it would have been to love him, —
how dangerously near she had come to being willing
to give up earth and Heaven for his sake, — and she

thought that the blight which had fallen upon her
child was the swift and sudden retribution for this sin
of her soul. Oh, must this little innocent life pay the
penalty for her? If only the child could be saved,
she would go away with it somewhere, and never see
Dr. Erskine again, — never even think of him, if she
could help it.

Sometimes, in the midst of all this, her conscience
asked her whether the sin for which she was suffering
might not lie further back still. Had she not committed
it when she fled away secretly from the home
where God's Providence had set her feet, — the man to
whom she had promised to cleave till death parted
them? Well, she would do her best to atone now.
If only her baby could be spared, she would go back
and humble herself at her husband's feet. He should
have his child, if he would, — he should pass sentence
on her, and she would abide by it, — only let the baby
live.

It was the old Romish notion of buying Heaven
by sacrifice; and yet how naturally it comes to all of
us in moments of anguish. Let but this cup pass from
us, and we will drink any other, — only let it pass.

He was divine who, even in that first moment when
agony beyond human conception forced from His lips
this cry, added to it, — “Not my will, but thine be
done.” When this grace comes to mortals, it is the
rainbow after the storm is spent.

Little Marian had been sick a week, when, one
morning, Madame Ponsard looked at her more gravely

than usual. “We must call a doctor,” she said. “It
will not do to let this go on. Little Chérie is wasting
away.”

Elizabeth lifted her heavy, swollen eyes. “Is there
no way to send for Dr. Erskine? I do not think any
one else would help her.”

Madame went down to the concierge herself, in her
eagerness, and came back presently with slower
steps.

“He left no word where he was going. He said he
should be gone two weeks, and his letters must be kept
for him. I think we ought not to wait.”

“Send, then, for whomever you please. I believe
that no one else will do her any good; still we can try.
But you must make the strange doctor understand
plainly, in the first place, that he must give up the
case to Dr. Erskine, whenever he comes.”

And then, as madame went out of the room, she
burst into a low, heart-broken wail, — “He won't come,
he won't come. God means my little one to die. And
I have deserved it all.”

Half an hour afterwards, a chatty French doctor sat
watching Elizabeth's baby. He was heartily sorry for
the poor young mother, and was kind to her, after his
own lights. But he thought words would cheer her;
whereas they went nigh to drive her mad. At last
some cord snapped, and her weak nerves or her weak
patience gave way.

“I cannot bear talking,” she said, with a petulance
which held in it something touching. “Please only tell

me what you think of her, — whether she will live, —
and leave us alone.”

Good Dr. Bouffon was not disturbed. He hoped he
could make allowance for ladies' nerves, he told Madame
Ponsard afterwards. He answered Elizabeth with
a calmness which she found intensely exasperating.

“It is impossible to say, dear madame, — quite impossible.
She can never have been strong.”

“Oh, she has been the healthiest little creature,”
Madame Ponsard interposed.

Dr. Bouffon bowed.

“Exactly, but health is not always strength. As I
said, she could never have been strong. I have written
the prescription which I think the case needs. For the
result we must wait.”

Then he bowed himself out. Madame Ponsard followed
him, and Elizabeth sat holding her child alone.

Any other observer might not have considered its
illness quite unaccountable. A first tooth was swelling
its gums. A second summer had set in for a few days,
burning October with the pitiless suns of July. There
was a languor in the air which oppressed stronger constitutions.
But Elizabeth associated the occult malady
which was sapping the foundations of her darling's life
with none of these things. To her it seemed a direct
judgment from Heaven, — the execution of the sentence
eternal justice had pronounced upon her. She
lost sight of the beatific vision, which had once blessed
her soul; of a Father, loving even while He chastened;
and with something of a heathen's spirit, she set about

offering her propitiatory sacrifice to offended Jove. She
put out of her arms her baby, asleep now, and wrote to
Elliott Le Roy these words: —

Then, when Madame Ponsard came back, she told
her story, and the contents of the letter which she
wished posted. Madame was surprised and a little
startled, but received the disclosure with the composure
and tact of a French woman, and began calling her
boarder Madame Le Roy as fluently as she had hitherto
called her Madame Nugent.

Now, Elizabeth thought, she had given up her own
will, — made the greatest sacrifice in her power. Now,
perhaps, destiny would relent. But the days passed
on, and brought with them no healing. The intense
heat went by. It was clear, beautiful October weather,
but still the child drooped, and daily the tiny hands
grew more waxen, and the blue veins showed more
clearly through the transparent temples.

On the afternoon of the fourteenth day, Dr. Erskine
walked into the room where Elizabeth sat, as usual,
holding her child. She lifted her languid eyes, but she

did not speak. Not even a thrill of hope stirred her
pulses. She felt in her soul that his coming was too
late. He stood beside her, silent as herself, looking
down at the child. Then he knelt, and counted its
pulse-beats.

“Madame told me she was ill,” he said, “but I did
not expect to see her like this. I shall never forgive
myself that I was not here to help you nurse her.”

“It might have done no good,” Elizabeth answered,
so drearily that it went to his heart. “I think God
meant her to die. It is my punishment. I have been
altogether wrong. But now I have done my best to
atone. A week ago I sent for him, — Marian's father.
He will be here in less than three weeks if he cares to
see her. Do you think we can keep her alive so long?”

She did not look at Dr. Erskine, or she would have
seen a tense white line round his lips, which would have
told her how he was suffering. He waited a moment
till he could speak calmly. Then he answered her.

“We will try. I dare not promise you that she will
get well. I think she is wasting away. She has your
highly wrought temperament, and I could have told
you that she never was strong.”

“So Dr. Bouffon said, but I did not believe him.
She has been so lovely.”

“Yes, and it was partly her very frailness that made
her so fair. But now you must give her up to me, and
take some rest. Go down into the garden, and get the
fresh air. Has there been no one to tell you how much
her well-being depended upon your health?”

She gave the child to him obediently. For days
Madame Ponsard had pleaded in vain to be allowed to
hold her, and Elizabeth had clung to her obstinately;
but it seemed another thing to trust her to Dr. Erskine.

Two weeks more went on, during which they watched
together over that ebbing life. They seldom spoke to
each other through this time; but now and then, out
of the anguish of Elizabeth's tortured heart, would be
wrung some cry which she would have suppressed before
any witness but him.

“If she could but have lived,” she would say sometimes,
“to speak to me, to call me mother just once, I
think I could bear it better.”

Once, in the bitterness of her despair, she cried, —
“Oh, if she were not quite so pure! If she had only
lived to be soiled ever so little by human sin, I might
hope to see her again, — but now she will go to the
highest heaven, and I can never find her in all eternity.”

To this Dr. Erskine made answer, or through him
some holier voice spoke, — “I think the highest heaven
is for those who have struggled and conquered, sinned
and repented, rather than for those who have been
spared alike all struggle and all pain. But I do not
believe whole eternities can separate a mother from her
child.”

There came a morning at last when the baby's eyes
did not open. Dr. Erskine felt the heart throb faintly
under his fingers, but he knew it was beating its last.

He trembled for Elizabeth, and dared not tell her. She
anticipated him.

“Doctor,” she said, — and her voice was so passionless
that it might almost have belonged to a disembodied
spirit, — “I know that my darling is dying.”

He bowed his head mutely. Her very calmness
awed him.

“Is there any thing you can do to ease her?”

“Nothing. I do not think she suffers.”

“Then will you please to go away? She is mine, —
nobody's but mine, in her life and in her death, and I
want her quite to myself at the last.”

Sorrowfully enough he left her.

Elizabeth held her child closely, but gently. She
thought in that hour that she had never loved any thing
else, — never in this world should love any thing again.
She wanted to cry, but her eyes were dry and burning,
and not a tear fell on the little upturned face, changing
so fast to marble. She bent over, and whispered something
in the baby's ear, — a wild, passionate prayer that
it would remember her, and know her again in the infinite
spaces. A look seemed to answer her, — a radiant,
loving look, which she thought must be born of the near
heaven. She pressed her lips in a last despairing agony
of love to the little face, from which already, as she
kissed it, the soul had fled. Her white wonder had
gone home. This which lay upon her hungry heart
was stone.

An hour afterward Dr. Erskine went in, and saw the
motionless mother holding to her breast the motionless

child; and his first thought was that they had both died
together.

But when he went up to take the child from her
arms, Elizabeth clung to it with a passionate clasp.
With infinite gentleness he entreated her to go out into
the cool, reviving air, and leave for awhile her dead
darling to the ministrations of Madame Ponsard. She
obeyed him, in a patient, passive way, as if because to
obey was less trouble than to resist; and he made her
go down into the old summer-house. She sat there in
utter silence, for an hour, conscious, as it seemed, of
nothing which surrounded her, least of all of the tender
pity in his watching face.

At last Madame Ponsard came down, and made a
sign to him, and he got up and spoke to Elizabeth.

“Come, now,” he said, “you may go back to the
baby.”

Her face lightened a little, and she got up and followed
him.

The dead little queen of the Rue Jacob lay on her
own tiny bed, made all fresh and sweet for her reception.
She was robed in her richest garments, heavy
with lace and embroidery, and in her hand was clasped a
half-opened white rose-bud, as pure and pale as herself.

Elizabeth looked at her, and then turned to Madame
Ponsard and Dr. Erskine, with such entreaty in her
face, as brought the tears to both their eyes.

“Indeed,” she said, “I am not ungrateful, but I shall
have her such a little, little while. Mayn't I stay with
her all alone?”

And so they both went out.

Once or twice, during the day, Madame Ponsard
carried her something to eat or drink, and she took it
with a sort of weary and patient submission, which
was inexpressibly pitiful. Save for these brief interruptions,
she sat all day quite alone with her dead.

At night Madame Ponsard went to her with a question.
It was grievous to Madame's kind heart to see
this silent anguish, which neither words or tears relieved,
and which was so foreign to her own nature.
She thought, if once the baby could be buried out of
sight, Madame Le Roy would be able to cry, and by
and by to grow cheerful once more. So she went to
ask whether she should make arrangements for the
funeral to-morrow or the day after.

The question roused Elizabeth.

“Not to-morrow,” she answered, “and not the day
after. I have sent for her father to see her. I will
wait, and give him time. Let me keep her as long as
I can. She was all I had.”

So through the night, as through the day, she kept
her solitary vigil.

The next morning Dr. Erskine came to her. There
were the traces on his face of a conflict with himself,
but his words to Elizabeth were few.

“I am going into Brittany for a few weeks. I think
it is best.”

“I think it is,” she answered, drearily.

“Good-by, Elizabeth.”

“Good-by.”

The hand she laid for an instant in his was cold as
death. No pulse quickened at his clasp, and she turned
from him, as if even so few words had wearied her, to
look again at the still face, the little dark-lashed eyes
that would never open, the frozen lips that her kisses
could never warm.

Dr. Erskine turned, and looked also, for a few silent
moments, at the dead little queen he had loved so well,
and served so faithfully. Then he stooped down, and
pressed his lips to the tiny, stirless face, and was
gone.

Elizabeth scarcely knew it when he went out of the
room. For the time her passion of woe had absorbed
every other emotion, save the one grim thought which
would not be absorbed, — that Le Roy might be almost
there, — that she was waiting for her Judge.

And so for two days more she sat there, — her arms
empty, her heart faint with its hunger, her future so
near that she seemed to feel an icy blast of its air.