"I could not discover for some time whether he was alive or dead. I heard that Lady Louisa had died a few months before, and I wouldn't ask any direct questions out of respect for her. If she had managed to keep the whole pitiful story a secret, to bury it in oblivion, what right had I to drag it to light again--to make her and him the subject of idle tittle-tattle, for that was what it amounted to? She was at rest beyond the reach of tongues, and in a way that made it worse, for she wasn't there to guard him from lies.
"At last one day I went to see her grave in the churchyard, and then I knew. Have you seen it?"
"No," answered Philippa. "The doctor asked me the same question, and whether I knew what was written on it."
"Her grave is just inside the lych-gate at the top of the steps. Over it is a plain white marble cross with her name and the dates, and these are the words on the base of it-"'I leave my best belovèd in His care, And go because He calls me--He whose voice I cannot disobey; praying that He Who heard the widow's prayer in Galilee Will hear mine now, and bring you soon to me Where tears and pains are not; that we may stand Before His throne together, hand in hand.'
I think that if her heart had not broken before it must have broken when she had to leave him."
"The doctor told me that she wrote the words and asked that they should be placed on her tombstone," said Philippa. "Poor soul!"
"I did not know that," returned Isabella, "but I have sometimes thought that she must have hoped that Francis would see them some day; but her hope has been vain."
"Why did you not go straight to Marion--to Mrs. Heathcote, I mean, and ask her?" asked Philippa. "Marion is so kind, she would have told you all she could. Or Doctor Gale? Did you not know him? Why could you not have asked him?"
"I hardly know why I did not do so, but I know that it was impossible to me. It is not as if I had ever--as if I had any right--I was a stranger. It is true that I knew Robert Gale in the old days, but look at the years that have passed. He would probably not have remembered me, and how could I have explained? It would have been like tearing my inmost heart out and laying it on the table for him to dissect as he chose. My story was my own--I have hugged it very close--until you came. And yet I think I always knew that some day, through no effort of mine, the veil would be lifted. I was certain of it, and in that certainty I could wait with some degree of patience until the moment came. Sometimes I must confess I have wondered whether it would be in this world or the next--and I didn't want it in some other sphere, but here in the old world, among the scenes and sights he loved. I have waited for some message. Will it ever come, I wonder! Shall I ever see his face again? For a moment I thought it had come when I met you--in all outward seeming, the Phil I used to know. I knew she was dead--I saw it in the papers; and then to meet you! Honestly, my senses reeled.