EXT day, oh, joy of joys! Barbara and Anthony met once more after some fifteen months of separation. Anthony was now in his twenty-fourth year, a fine young man with well-cut features, brown eyes and a pleasant smile. Muscularly, too, he was very strong, as was shown by his athletic record at Cambridge. Whether this strength extended to his constitution was another matter. Mrs. Walrond, noticing his unvarying colour, which she thought unduly high, and the transparent character of his skin, spoke to her husband upon the matter.
In his turn Septimus spoke to the old local doctor, who shrugged his shoulders and remarked that the Arnotts had been delicate for generations—“lungy,” he called it. Noticing that Mr. Walrond looked serious, and knowing something of how matters stood between Anthony and Barbara, he hastened to add that so far as he knew there was no cause for alarm, and that if he were moderately careful he thought that Anthony might live to eighty. “But it is otherwise with his brother,” he added significantly, “and, for the matter of that, with the old man also.”
Then he went away, and there was something in the manner of his going which seemed to suggest that he did not wish to continue the conversation.
From Anthony, however, Barbara soon learned the truth as to his brother. His lungs were gone, for the chill he took in the Crimea had settled on them, and now there was left to him but a little time to live. This was sad news, and marred the happiness of their meeting, since both of them were far too unworldly to consider its effect upon their own prospects, or that it would make easy that which had hitherto seemed almost impossible.
“Are you nursing him?” she asked.
“Yes, more or less. I took him to the south of England for two months, but it did no good.”
“I am glad the thing is not catching,” she remarked, glancing at him.
“Oh no,” he replied carelessly; “I never heard that it was catching, though some people say it runs in families. I hope not, I am sure, as the poor old chap insists upon my sleeping in his room whenever I am at home, as we used to do when we were boys.”
Then their talk wandered elsewhere, for they had so much to say to each other that it seemed doubtful if they would ever get to the end of it all. Anthony was particularly anxious to learn what blessed circumstance had caused Barbara’s sudden reappearance at Eastwich. She fenced for a while, then told him all the truth.
“So you gave up this brilliant marriage for me, a fellow with scarcely a halfpenny and very few prospects,” he exclaimed, staring at her.
“Of course. What would you have expected me to do—marry one man while I love another? As for the rest it must take its chance.” And while the words were on her lips, for the first time it came into Barbara’s mind that perhaps Anthony had no need to trouble about his worldly fortunes. For if it were indeed true that Captain Arnott was doomed, who else would succeed to the estate?
“I think you are an angel,” he said, still overcome by this wondrous instance of fidelity and of courage in the face of Lady Thompson’s anger.
“If I had done anything else, I think, Anthony, that you might very well have called me—whatever is the reverse of an angel.”
And thus the links of their perfect love were drawn even closer than before.
Only three days later Mr. Walrond was summoned hastily to the Hall. When he returned from his ministrations it was to announce in a sad voice that Captain Arnott was sinking fast. Before the following morning he was dead.
A month or so after the grave had closed over Captain Arnott the engagement of Anthony and Barbara was formally announced, and by the express wish of Mr. Arnott. The old gentleman had for years been partially paralysed and in a delicate state of health, which the sad loss of his elder son had done much to render worse. He sent for Barbara, whom he had known from her childhood, and told her that the sooner she and Anthony were married, the better he would be pleased.
“You see, my dear,” he added, “I do not wish the old name to die out after we have been in this place for three hundred years, and you Walronds are a healthy stock, which is more than we can say now. Worn out, I suppose, worn out! In fact,” he went on, looking at her sharply, “it is for you to consider whether you care to take the risks of coming into this family, for, whatever the doctors may or may not say, I think it my duty to tell you straight out that in my opinion there is some risk.”
“If so, I do not fear it, Mr. Arnott, and I hope you will not put any such idea into Anthony’s head, for if you do he might refuse to marry me, and that would break my heart.”