The Rainbow

The two sat very quiet. His mind, in a sort of trance, seemed

to become more and more vague. He held the child close to him. A

quivering little shudder, re-echoing from her sobbing, went down

her limbs. He held her closer. Gradually she relaxed, the

eyelids began to sink over her dark, watchful eyes. As she sank

to sleep, his mind became blank.

When he came to, as if from sleep, he seemed to be sitting in

a timeless stillness. What was he listening for? He seemed to be

listening for some sound a long way off, from beyond life. He

remembered his wife. He must go back to her. The child was

asleep, the eyelids not quite shut, showing a slight film of

black pupil between. Why did she not shut her eyes? Her mouth

was also a little open.

He rose quickly and went back to the house.

"Is she asleep?" whispered Tilly.

He nodded. The servant-woman came to look at the child who

slept in the shawl, with cheeks flushed hot and red, and a

whiteness, a wanness round the eyes.

"God-a-mercy!" whispered Tilly, shaking her head.

He pushed off his boots and went upstairs with the child. He

became aware of the anxiety grasped tight at his heart, because

of his wife. But he remained still. The house was silent save

for the wind outside, and the noisy trickling and splattering of

water in the water-butts. There was a slit of light under his

wife's door.

He put the child into bed wrapped as she was in the shawl,

for the sheets would be cold. Then he was afraid that she might

not be able to move her arms, so he loosened her. The black eyes

opened, rested on him vacantly, sank shut again. He covered her

up. The last little quiver from the sobbing shook her

breathing.

This was his room, the room he had had before he married. It

was familiar. He remembered what it was to be a young man,

untouched.

He remained suspended. The child slept, pushing her small

fists from the shawl. He could tell the woman her child was

asleep. But he must go to the other landing. He started. There

was the sound of the owls--the moaning of the woman. What

an uncanny sound! It was not human--at least to a man.

He went down to her room, entering softly. She was lying

still, with eyes shut, pale, tired. His heart leapt, fearing she

was dead. Yet he knew perfectly well she was not. He saw the way

her hair went loose over her temples, her mouth was shut with

suffering in a sort of grin. She was beautiful to him--but

it was not human. He had a dread of her as she lay there. What

had she to do with him? She was other than himself.